The Social Revolutionaries are the proposed model of the structure of society. Socialist Revolutionary Party in Russia

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, revolutionary sentiments were gaining strength in the Russian Empire. Like mushrooms after rain, political parties are growing that see the future development and prosperity of Russia in the overthrow of the monarchy and the transition to a democratic form of collective governance. One of the largest and most organized parties of the left wing were the Social Revolutionaries, or Socialist Revolutionaries for short (in accordance with their abbreviation SR).

This party had enormous influence both before and after 1917, but was unable to retain power in its hands.

A little history

Since the mid-nineteenth century, all political circles could be divided into:

• Conservative, right-wing. Their motto was “Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality.” They did not see the need for any changes.
• Liberal. For the most part, they did not seek to overthrow the monarchy, but they also did not consider autocracy the best form of state power. In their understanding, Russia was supposed to achieve a constitutional monarchy through liberal reforms. Disagreements arose only in the proportions of the division of power between the monarch and the elected body of government.
• Radical, left. They did not see a future in autocratic Russia and believed that the transition from a monarchy to the rule of an elected council could only be accomplished through revolution.

At the end of the nineteenth century The Russian Empire is experiencing a colossal economic boom thanks to Witte's reforms. The downside of these reforms was the nationalization of production and an increase in excise taxes. Most of the tax burden falls on the poorest segments of the population. Hard life and sacrifices in the name of economic development are causing more and more discontent, including among the educated segments of the population. This leads to a serious strengthening of leftist sentiments in political circles.

At the same time, the liberal-minded intelligentsia is gradually leaving the political arena. The so-called theory of “small deeds” is gaining more and more momentum among liberals. Instead of fighting to promote the desired reforms that will improve the lives of the poor, liberals decide to do something on their own for the benefit of the common people. Most of them go to work as doctors or teachers to help peasants and workers receive education and medical care now, without waiting for reforms. This leads to a clash between the remaining circles of the extreme left and right. In the nineties, a party of social revolutionaries was formed - future ideologists of the left movement.

Formation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

In 1894 A circle of socialist revolutionaries was formed in Saratov. They maintained contact with some groups of the terrorist organization “People's Will”. When the Narodnaya Volya members were dispersed, the Saratov social revolutionary circle began to act independently, developing its own program. Their press organ published this program in 1896. A year later, this circle ended up in Moscow.

At the same time, in other cities of the Russian Empire there were people's will, socialist circles, which gradually united with each other. At the beginning of the 1900s, a single Social Revolutionary Party was formed.

Pre-revolutionary activities of the Social Revolutionaries

The Socialist Revolutionary Party also included a military organization that carried out terrorist attacks against high-ranking officials. In 1902, they attempted to assassinate the Minister of the Interior. However, four years later the organization was dissolved and was replaced by flying squads - small terrorist groups that did not have centralized control.

At the same time, preparations were made for the revolution. The Social Revolutionaries saw the peasants, as well as the proletariat, as the driving force of the revolution. The social revolutionaries considered the peasant question to be the main bone of contention between the state and the people. It was with the peasants that the Socialist Revolutionaries carried out propaganda work and formed political associations. They managed to incite peasants to revolt in several provinces, but there was no mass uprising throughout Russia.

Party numbers at the beginning of the twentieth century increased and its composition changed. During the first revolutions of 1905-1907, its extreme right and extreme left wings separated from the party. They formed the People's Socialists Party and the Union of Revolutionary Maximalist Socialists.

By the beginning of the First World War, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was again divided into centrists and internationalists. The internationalists soon received the name “Left Social Revolutionaries.” The radical left Socialist Revolutionaries were close to the Bolshevik Party, which the Internationalist Socialist Revolutionaries would soon join. But so far at the beginning of 1917, the Social Revolutionary Party was the largest and most influential revolutionary party.

February Revolution

World War I further shook the people's faith in the Russian autocracy. Here and there, riots of peasants and workers broke out, skillfully fueled by the agitation activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries. The general February strike in Petrograd turned into an armed uprising when the striking workers were supported by soldiers. The result of this uprising was the overthrow of the monarchy and the formation of a provisional government as the main authority in post-revolutionary Russia.

Social Revolutionaries in the provisional government

Since the main inspiring force of the February Revolution was the SR party, many positions in the provisional government went to them, although the cadet Lvov became the chairman of the government. Here are the most famous Social Revolutionary ministers of that time:

• Kerensky,
• Chernov,
• Avksentiev,
• Maslov.

The provisional government could not cope with the hunger and devastation that engulfed the state. The Bolsheviks took advantage of this in an attempt to gain power. The failure of the provisional government forced Lvov to resign. In August, the post of chairman of the provisional government went to the Socialist Revolutionary Kerensky. At the same time, a counter-revolutionary uprising occurred, to suppress which Kerensky took on the role of commander in chief. The uprising was successfully suppressed.

However, dissatisfaction with the provisional government grew as socio-economic reforms were delayed and the peasant issue was never resolved. And in October of the same year, as a result of an armed riot, the entire provisional government, with the exception of Kerensky, was arrested. The chairman managed to escape.

October Revolution and the fall of the Social Revolutionary Party

It was with the arrest of the provisional government that the October Revolution began. Peasants and workers became disillusioned with the provisional government and went over to the banner of the Bolsheviks. After the revolution, the Executive Committee, an executive body, and the Council of People's Commissars, a legislative body, were created. The first two decrees of the Council of People's Commissars were two decrees: the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land. The first called for an end to the world war. The second decree defended the interests of the peasants and was completely taken from the program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, since the Bolsheviks were a workers' party and did not deal with the peasant issue.

Meanwhile, the Socialist Revolutionaries continued to remain an influential party and were members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly. But when the left Socialist Revolutionaries joined the Bolsheviks, the right saw their goal as the overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship and a return to true democracy. However, the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party was still legalized, since the Bolsheviks planned to use it in the fight against the white movement. However, social revolutionaries in their printed publications continued to criticize the policies of the Bolsheviks, which led to mass arrests.

By 1919 the leadership of the SR party was already in exile. It considered foreign intervention to overthrow the Bolsheviks justified. However, the right-wing Social Revolutionaries who remained in the country saw in the intervention only the selfish interests of the imperialists. They abandoned the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks, since the country was already exhausted by the war. At the same time, they continued to conduct anti-Bolshevik campaigning in their printed publications.

The Social Revolutionaries, indeed, contributed to the fight against the whites. It was at the Zemsky Congress organized by the Socialist Revolutionaries that it was decided to overthrow the rule of Kolchak. However, in the early twenties, the Socialist Revolutionaries were accused of counter-revolutionary activities and the party was dissolved.

SR party program

The program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was based on the works Chernyshevsky, Mikhailovsky and Lavrov. This program was generously published in the printed publications of social revolutionaries: the newspapers “Revolutionary Russia”, “Conscious Russia”, “Narodny Vestnik”, “Mysl”.

General provisions

The general idea of ​​the Socialist Revolutionary program was Russia's transition to socialism, bypassing capitalism. They called their non-capitalist path democratic socialism, which was to be expressed through the rule of the following organized parties:

• The trade union is a party of producers,
• The Cooperative Union is a party of consumers,
• Parliamentary bodies of self-government consisting of organized citizens.

The central place in the Socialist Revolutionary program was occupied by the peasant question and the socialization of agriculture.

A look at the peasant question

The Social Revolutionaries' view of the peasant question was very original for that time. Socialism, according to the Socialist Revolutionaries, was supposed to begin in the countryside and from there expand throughout the country. And it had to begin precisely with the socialization of the land. What did this mean?

This meant, first of all, the abolition of private ownership of land. But at the same time, land could not be state property either. It was supposed to become public peasant property without the right to sell or buy it. This land was to be managed by elected bodies of collective people's self-government.

The provision of land for the use of peasants, according to the Social Revolutionaries, should have been equalization-labor. Namely, an individual peasant or a partnership of peasants could receive for use such an allotment of land that they could independently cultivate and which would be enough for them to feed themselves.

It was these ideas that later migrated to the “Decree on Land” of the Council of People’s Commissars.

Democratic ideas

The political ideas of the social revolutionaries gravitated towards democracy. During the transition to socialism, the Socialist Revolutionaries saw a democratic republic as the only acceptable form of power. With this form of power The following rights and freedoms of citizens had to be respected:

The last point implied that all categories of the population should be represented in government bodies in proportion to the number of these categories. Later, the same idea was put forward by the Social Democrats.

Legacy of the Social Revolutionary Party

What mark did the social revolutionaries leave in history? with their political and social program? First, there is the idea of ​​collective stewardship of the land. The Bolsheviks already introduced it into life, and in general the idea turned out to be so successful that other communist and socialist states adopted it.

Secondly, most of the rights and freedoms of citizens that the Social Revolutionaries defended just a hundred years ago now seem so obvious and inalienable that it is hard to believe that not so long ago they had to be fought for. Thirdly, the idea of ​​proportional representation of different categories of the population in government is also partially used in some countries in our time. In the modern world, this idea has taken the form of quotas in the government and beyond.

Social revolutionaries gave the modern world a lot of ideas about fair power and fair distribution of resources.

The Social Revolutionary Party (AKP) is a political force that united all the previously disparate forces of the opposition who sought to overthrow the government. Today there is a widespread myth that the AKP are terrorists, radicals who have chosen blood and murder as their method of struggle. This misconception arose because many representatives of populism entered the new force and actually chose radical methods of political struggle. However, the AKP did not consist entirely of ardent nationalists and terrorists; its structure also included moderate members. Many of them even occupied prominent political positions and were famous and respected people. However, the “Combat Organization” still existed in the party. It was she who was engaged in terror and murder. Its goal is to sow fear and panic in society. They partially succeeded: there were cases when politicians refused the posts of governors because they were afraid of being killed. But not all Socialist Revolutionary leaders held such views. Many of them wanted to fight for power through legal constitutional means. It is the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries who will become the main characters of our article. But first, let's talk about when the party officially appeared and who was part of it.

The emergence of the AKP in the political arena

The name “social revolutionaries” was adopted by representatives of revolutionary populism. In this game they saw a continuation of their struggle. They formed the backbone of the first combat organization of the party.
Already in the mid-90s. In the 19th century, Socialist Revolutionary organizations began to form: in 1894, the first Saratov Union of Russian Social Revolutionaries appeared. By the end of the 19th century, similar organizations had arisen in almost all major cities. These are Odessa, Minsk, St. Petersburg, Tambov, Kharkov, Poltava, Moscow. The first leader of the party was A. Argunov.

"Combat Organization"

The “combat organization” of the Socialist Revolutionaries was a terrorist organization. It is by this that the entire party is judged as “bloody.” In fact, such a formation existed, but it was autonomous from the Central Committee and was often not subordinate to it. For the sake of fairness, let’s say that many party leaders also did not share these methods of warfare: there were the so-called left and right Socialist Revolutionaries.
The idea of ​​terror was not new in Russian history: the 19th century was accompanied by mass murders of prominent political figures. Then this was done by the “populists”, who by the beginning of the 20th century joined the AKP. In 1902, the “Combat Organization” first showed itself as an independent organization - the Minister of Internal Affairs D.S. Sipyagin was killed. A series of murders of other prominent political figures, governors, etc. soon followed. The leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries could not influence their bloody brainchild, which put forward the slogan: “Terror as the path to a bright future.” It is noteworthy that one of the main leaders of the “Combat Organization” was the double agent Azef. He simultaneously organized terrorist attacks, chose the next victims, and on the other hand, was a secret agent of the secret police, “leaked” prominent performers to the special services, weaved intrigues in the party, and prevented the death of the emperor himself.

Leaders of the "Combat Organization"

The leaders of the “Combat Organization” (BO) were Azef, a double agent, as well as Boris Savinkov, who left memoirs about this organization. It was from his notes that historians studied all the intricacies of BO. It did not have a rigid party hierarchy, as, for example, in the Central Committee of the AKP. According to B. Savinkov, there was an atmosphere of a team, a family. There was harmony and respect for each other. Azef himself understood perfectly well that authoritarian methods alone could not keep the BO in submission; he allowed the activists to determine their internal life themselves. Its other active figures - Boris Savinkov, I. Schweitzer, E. Sozonov - did everything to ensure that the organization was a single family. In 1904, another finance minister, V.K. Plehve, was killed. After this, the BO Charter was adopted, but it was never implemented. According to B. Savinkov’s recollections, it was just a piece of paper that had no legal force, no one paid any attention to it. In January 1906, the “Combat Organization” was finally liquidated at the party congress due to the refusal of its leaders to continue the terror, and Azef himself became a supporter of the political legitimate struggle. In the future, of course, there were attempts to revive her with the aim of killing the emperor himself, but Azef always neutralized them until his exposure and escape.

Driving political force of the AKP

The Social Revolutionaries in the impending revolution placed emphasis on the peasantry. This is understandable: it was the agrarians who made up the majority of the inhabitants of Russia, and it was they who endured centuries of oppression. Viktor Chernov thought so too. By the way, until the first Russian revolution of 1905, serfdom actually remained in Russia in a modified format. Only the reforms of P. A. Stolypin freed the most hardworking forces from the hated community, thereby creating a powerful impetus for socio-economic development.
The Social Revolutionaries of 1905 were skeptical about the revolution. They did not consider the First Revolution of 1905 to be either socialist or bourgeois. The transition to socialism was supposed to be peaceful, gradual in our country, and a bourgeois revolution, in their opinion, was not necessary at all, because in Russia the majority of the inhabitants of the empire were peasants, not workers.
The Socialist Revolutionaries proclaimed the phrase “Land and Freedom” as their political slogan.

Official appearance

The process of forming an official political party was long. The reason was that the leaders of the Social Revolutionaries had different views both on the ultimate goal of the party and on the use of methods for achieving their goals. In addition, there were actually two independent forces in the country: the “Southern Socialist Revolutionary Party” and the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries.” They merged into a single structure. The new leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party at the beginning of the 20th century managed to gather all the prominent figures together. The founding congress took place from December 29, 1905 to January 4, 1906 in Finland. At that time it was not an independent country, but an autonomy within the Russian Empire. Unlike the future Bolsheviks, who created their RSDLP party abroad, the Socialist Revolutionaries were formed within Russia. Viktor Chernov became the leader of the united party.
In Finland, the AKP approved its program, temporary charter, and summed up the results of its movement. The official formation of the party was facilitated by the Manifesto of October 17, 1905. He officially proclaimed the State Duma, which was formed through elections. The leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries did not want to remain on the sidelines - they also began an official legal struggle. Extensive propaganda work is carried out, official printed publications are published, and new members are actively recruited. By 1907, the “Combat Organization” was dissolved. After this, the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries do not control their former militants and terrorists, their activities become decentralized, and their numbers grow. But with the dissolution of the military wing, on the contrary, there is an increase in terrorist attacks - there are 223 of them in total. The loudest of them is considered to be the explosion of the carriage of the Moscow mayor Kalyaev.

Disagreements

Since 1905, disagreements began between political groups and forces in the AKP. The so-called left Socialist Revolutionaries and centrists appear. The term “Right Social Revolutionaries” was not used in the party itself. This label was later invented by the Bolsheviks. In the party itself there was a division not into “left” and “right”, but into maximalists and minimalists, by analogy with the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The Left Social Revolutionaries are the maximalists. They broke away from the main forces in 1906. The maximalists insisted on the continuation of agrarian terror, that is, the overthrow of power by revolutionary methods. The minimalists insisted on fighting through legal, democratic means. Interestingly, the RSDLP party was divided into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in almost the same way. Maria Spiridonova became the leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. It is noteworthy that they subsequently merged with the Bolsheviks, while the minimalists merged with other forces, and the leader V. Chernov himself was a member of the Provisional Government.

Woman leader

The Social Revolutionaries inherited the traditions of the Narodniks, whose prominent figures for some time were women. At one time, after the arrest of the main leaders of the People's Will, only one member of the executive committee remained at large - Vera Figner, who led the organization for almost two years. The murder of Alexander II is also connected with the name of another woman Narodnaya Volya - Sofia Perovskaya. Therefore, no one was against it when Maria Spiridonova became the head of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Next - a little about Maria’s activities.

Spiridonova's popularity

Maria Spiridonova is a symbol of the First Russian Revolution; many prominent figures, poets, and writers worked on her sacred image. Maria did not do anything supernatural, compared to the activities of other terrorists who carried out the so-called agrarian terror. In January 1906, she made an attempt on the life of the adviser to the governor, Gabriel Luzhenovsky. He “offended” before Russian revolutionaries during 1905. Luzhenovsky brutally suppressed any revolutionary protests in his province; he was the leader of the Tambov Black Hundreds, a nationalist party that defended monarchical traditional values. The assassination attempt for Maria Spiridonova ended unsuccessfully: she was brutally beaten by Cossacks and police. Perhaps she was even raped, but this information is unofficial. Particularly zealous offenders of Maria - policeman Zhdanov and Cossack officer Avramov - were overtaken by reprisals in the future. Spiridonova herself became a “great martyr” who suffered for the ideals of the Russian revolution. The public outcry about her case spread throughout the pages of the foreign press, which even in those years loved to talk about human rights in countries not under their control.
Journalist Vladimir Popov made a name for himself on this story. He conducted an investigation for the liberal newspaper Rus. Maria’s case was a real PR campaign: her every gesture, every word she said at the trial was described in the newspapers, letters to her family and friends from prison were published. One of the most prominent lawyers of that time came to her defense: Nikolai Teslenko, a member of the Central Committee of Cadets, who headed the Union of Lawyers of Russia. Spiridonova's photograph was distributed throughout the empire - it was one of the most popular photographs of that time. There is evidence that Tambov peasants prayed for her in a special chapel erected in the name of Mary of Egypt. All articles about Maria were republished; every student considered it an honor to have her card in his pocket, along with his student ID. The system of power could not withstand the public outcry: Mary’s death penalty was abolished, changing the punishment to lifelong hard labor. In 1917, Spiridonova joined the Bolsheviks.

Other Left SR leaders

Speaking about the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries, it is necessary to mention several more prominent figures of this party. The first is Boris Kamkov (real name Katz).

One of the founders of the AK Party. Born in 1885 in Bessarabia. The son of a Jewish zemstvo doctor, he participated in the revolutionary movement in Chisinau and Odessa, for which he was arrested as a member of the BO. In 1907 he fled abroad, where he carried out all his active work. During the First World War, he adhered to defeatist views, that is, he actively wanted the defeat of Russian troops in the imperialist war. He was a member of the editorial board of the anti-war newspaper “Life”, as well as a committee for helping prisoners of war. He returned to Russia only after the February Revolution, in 1917. Kamkov actively opposed the Provisional “bourgeois” government and the continuation of the war. Convinced that he would not be able to resist the policies of the AKP, Kamkov, together with Maria Spiridonova and Mark Nathanson, initiated the creation of a faction of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. In the Pre-Parliament (September 22 - October 25, 1917) Kamkov defended his positions on peace and the Decree on Land. However, they were rejected, which led him to a rapprochement with Lenin and Trotsky. The Bolsheviks decided to leave the Pre-Parliament, calling on the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to follow with them. Kamkov decided to stay, but declared solidarity with the Bolsheviks in the event of a revolutionary uprising. Thus, Kamkov already then either knew or guessed about the possible seizure of power by Lenin and Trotsky. In the fall of 1917, he became one of the leaders of the largest Petrograd cell of the AKP. After October 1917, he tried to establish relations with the Bolsheviks and declared that all parties should be included in the new Council of People's Commissars. He actively opposed the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, although back in the summer he declared the inadmissibility of continuing the war. In July 1918, Left Socialist Revolutionary movements began against the Bolsheviks, in which Kamkov took part. From January 1920, a series of arrests and exiles began, but he never abandoned his allegiance to the AKP, despite the fact that he once actively supported the Bolsheviks. It was only with the beginning of the Trotskyist purges that Stalin was executed on August 29, 1938. Rehabilitated by the Russian Prosecutor's Office in 1992.

Another prominent theorist of the left Socialist Revolutionaries is Steinberg Isaac Zakharovich. At first, like others, he was a supporter of the rapprochement of the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. He was even the People's Commissar of Justice in the Council of People's Commissars. However, just like Kamkov, he was an ardent opponent of the conclusion of the Brest Peace. During the Socialist Revolutionary uprising, Isaac Zakharovich was abroad. After returning to the RSFSR, he led an underground struggle against the Bolsheviks, as a result of which he was arrested by the Cheka in 1919. After the final defeat of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, he emigrated abroad, where he carried out anti-Soviet activities. Author of the book “From February to October 1917,” which was published in Berlin.
Another prominent figure who maintained contact with the Bolsheviks was Natanson Mark Andreevich. After the October Revolution in November 1917, he initiated the creation of a new party - the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party. These were the new “leftists” who did not want to join the Bolsheviks, but also did not join the centrists from the Constituent Assembly. In 1918, the party openly opposed the Bolsheviks, but Nathanson remained faithful to the alliance with them, breaking away from the Left Social Revolutionaries. A new movement was organized - the Party of Revolutionary Communism, of which Nathanson was a member of the Central Executive Committee. In 1919, he realized that the Bolsheviks would not tolerate any other political force. Fearing arrest, he left for Switzerland, where he died of illness.

Social Revolutionaries: 1917

After the high-profile terrorist attacks of 1906-1909. The Social Revolutionaries are considered the main threat to the empire. Real police raids begin against them. The February Revolution revived the party, and the idea of ​​“peasant socialism” found a response in the hearts of people, since many wanted the redistribution of landowners’ lands. By the end of the summer of 1917, the number of the party reached one million people. 436 party organizations are being formed in 62 provinces. Despite the large numbers and support, the political struggle was rather sluggish: for example, in the entire history of the party, only four congresses were held, and by 1917 a permanent Charter had not been adopted.
The rapid growth of the party, the lack of a clear structure, membership fees, and registration of its members lead to strong differences in political views. Some of its illiterate members did not even see the difference between the AKP and the RSDLP and considered the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks to be one party. There were frequent cases of transition from one political force to another. Also, entire villages, factories, factories joined the party. AKP leaders noted that many of the so-called March Socialist-Revolutionaries join the party solely for the purpose of career growth. This was confirmed by their massive departure after the Bolsheviks came to power on October 25, 1917. Almost all of the March Socialist-Revolutionaries went over to the Bolsheviks by the beginning of 1918.
By the fall of 1917, the Socialist Revolutionaries split into three parties: right (Breshko-Breshkovskaya E.K., Kerensky A.F., Savinkov B.V.), centrists (Chernov V.M., Maslov S.L.), left ( Spiridonova M. A., Kamkov B. D.).

The largest and most influential of the non-proletarian parties was the party of socialist revolutionaries (Socialist Revolutionaries), created in 1902. The history of the emergence of the Socialist Revolutionary Party is connected with the populist movement. In 1881, after the defeat of Narodnaya Volya, some former Narodnaya Volya members became part of several underground groups. From 1891 to 1900 the majority of underground left-populist circles and groups take the name “socialist-revolutionaries.” The first organization to adopt this name was the Swiss emigrant group of Russian populists led by Kh. Zhitlovsky.

The main role in the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the development of its program was played by the Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries, the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, the Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia and the Agrarian Socialist League.

The programs of these groups show the evolution of the views of future Socialist Revolutionaries. Initially, one can trace the reliance on the intelligentsia, the idea of ​​realizing the leading role of the working class. Even those groups that relied on the peasantry then saw its stratification. And with regard to the peasantry, only one measure was expressed - an additional addition of land to peasant plots.

Many Socialist Revolutionary groups in the 90s of the 19th century. had a negative attitude towards the practical use of individual terror. And the revision of these views largely occurred under the influence of Marxism.

But the departure from the populist worldview among the Socialist Revolutionaries did not last long. Already in 1901, they decided to focus their main attention on disseminating socialist ideas among the peasants. The reason was the first major peasant unrest. The Social Revolutionaries came to the conclusion that they were early disillusioned with the peasantry as the most revolutionary class.

One of the first Socialist Revolutionaries, who began working among the peasants already in the 90s, was Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov, one of the future leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. His father, a native of a peasant family, in the recent past a serf, through the efforts of his parents received an education, became a district treasurer, rose to the rank of collegiate councilor and the Order of St. Vladimir, which gave him the right to personal nobility. The father had a certain influence on his son’s views, repeatedly expressing the idea that all the land, sooner or later, should go from the landowners to the peasants.

Under the influence of his older brother, Victor, even in his high school years, became interested in the political struggle and followed the typical path for an intellectual to the revolution through populist circles. In 1892 he entered the law faculty of Moscow University. It was at this time that Chernov developed an interest in Marxism, which he considered necessary to know better than its supporters. In 1893, he joined the secret organization “Party of People's Law”; in 1894 he was arrested and deported to live in the city of Tambov. During his arrest, sitting in the Peter and Paul Fortress, he began studying philosophy, political economy, sociology and history. Tambov group V.M. Chernova was one of the first to resume the Narodniks’ orientation toward the peasantry, launching extensive agitation work.

In the fall of 1901, the largest populist organizations in Russia decided to unite into a party. In December 1901, it was finally formed and received the name “Party of Socialist Revolutionaries.” Its official bodies became “Revolutionary Russia” (from number 3) and “Bulletin of the Russian Revolution” (from number 2).

The Socialist Revolutionary Party considered itself a spokesman for the interests of all working and exploited strata of the people. However, in the foreground, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, like the old Narodnaya Volya members, still had the interests and aspirations of tens of millions of peasants during the revolution. Gradually, the main functional role of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the system of political parties in Russia emerged more and more clearly - the expression of the interests of the entire working peasantry as a whole, primarily the poor and middle peasants. In addition, the Socialist Revolutionaries carried out work among soldiers and sailors, students and democratic intelligentsia. All these layers, together with the peasantry and proletariat, were united by the Socialist Revolutionaries under the concept of “working people.”

The social base of the Social Revolutionaries was quite wide. Workers made up 43%, peasants (together with soldiers) - 45%, intellectuals (including students) - 12%. During the first revolution, the Socialist Revolutionaries numbered over 60-65 thousand people in their ranks, not counting the large layer of party sympathizers.

Local organizations operated in more than 500 cities and towns in 76 provinces and regions of the country. The overwhelming majority of organizations and party members were from European Russia. There were large Socialist Revolutionary organizations in the Volga region, middle and southern black soil provinces. During the years of the first revolution, more than one and a half thousand peasant Socialist Revolutionary brotherhoods, many student organizations, student groups and unions arose. The Socialist Revolutionary Party also included 7 national organizations: Estonian, Yakut, Buryat, Chuvash, Greek, Ossetian, Mohammedan Volga group. In addition, in the national regions of the country there were several parties and organizations of the Socialist-Revolutionary type: the Polish Socialist Party, the Armenian revolutionary union "Dashnaktsutyun", the Belarusian Socialist Community, the Party of Socialist Federalists of Georgia, the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, the Socialist Jewish workers' party, etc.

Leading figures of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1905-1907. were its main theorist V.M. Chernov, head of the Combat Organization E.F. Azef (later exposed as a provocateur), his assistant B.V. Savinkov, participants in the populist movement of the last century M.A. Nathanson, E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, I.A. Rubanovich, future outstanding chemist A.N. Bach. And also younger G.A. Gershuni, N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov, A.A. Argunov, S.N. Sletov, sons of a millionaire merchant, brothers A.R. and M.R. Gots, I.I. Funda-minsky (Bunakov), etc.

The Social Revolutionaries were not a single movement. Their left wing, which in 1906 formed the independent “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries-Maximalists,” spoke out for the “socialization” of not only the land, but also all plants and factories. The right wing, the tone of which was set by the former liberal populists grouped around the magazine “Russian Wealth” (A.V. Peshekhonov, V.A. Myakotin, N.F. Annensky, etc.), was limited to the demand for the alienation of landowners’ lands for “moderate remuneration” and replacing autocracy with a constitutional monarchy. In 1906, the right Socialist Revolutionaries created the legal “Labor People's Socialist Party” (Enes), which immediately became a spokesman for the interests of the more prosperous peasantry. However, at the beginning of 1907 there were only about 1.5 - 2 thousand members.

The Socialist Revolutionary program was developed on the basis of various and very different projects by the beginning of 1905 and was adopted after heavy debate at the party congress in January 1906. The Socialist Revolutionary doctrine combined elements of old populist views and fashionable bourgeois liberal theories , anarchic and Marxist. During the preparation of the program, an attempt was made at a conscious compromise. Chernov said that “every step of a real movement is more important than a dozen programs, and party unity on the basis of an imperfect, mosaic program is better than a split in the name of great programmatic symmetry.”

From the adopted program of the Socialist Revolutionaries it is clear that the Socialist Revolutionary Party saw its main goal in the overthrow of the autocracy and the transition from democracy to socialism. In the program, the Socialist Revolutionaries assess the preconditions of socialism. They believed that capitalism in its development creates conditions for building socialism through the socialization of small-scale production into large-scale production “from above”, as well as “from below” - through the development of non-capitalist forms of economy: cooperation, community, labor peasant farming.

In the introductory part of the program, the Socialist Revolutionaries talk about the various combinations of positive and negative aspects of capitalism. They included among the “destructive aspects” the “anarchy of production”, which reaches extreme manifestations in crises, disasters and insecurity for the working masses. They saw the positive aspects in the fact that capitalism prepares “certain material elements” for the future socialist system and promotes the unification of industrial armies of hired workers into a cohesive social force.

The program states that “the entire burden of the struggle against tsarism falls on the proletariat, the working peasantry and the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia.” Together, according to the Social Revolutionaries, they constitute the “laboring working class”, which, organized into a social revolutionary party, should, if necessary, establish its own temporary revolutionary dictatorship.

But in contrast to Marxism, the Socialist Revolutionaries made the division of society into classes dependent not on the attitude to the tools and means of production, but on the attitude to labor and the distribution of income. Therefore, they considered the differences between workers and peasants to be unprincipled, and their similarities to be enormous, since the basis of their existence lies in labor and ruthless exploitation, to which they are equally subjected. Chernov, for example, refused to recognize the peasantry as a petty-bourgeois class, because its characteristic features are not the appropriation of other people's labor, but its own labor.

He called the peasantry the “working class of the village.” But he divided two categories of peasants: the working peasantry, living by the exploitation of their own labor power, here he also included the agricultural proletariat - farm laborers, as well as the rural bourgeoisie, living by the exploitation of someone else's labor power. Chernov argued that “the independent working farmer, as such, is very susceptible to socialist propaganda; no less susceptible than the agricultural farm laborer, the proletarian.”

But although the workers and the working peasantry constitute a single working class and are equally inclined towards socialism, they must arrive at it in different ways. Chernov believed that the city was moving towards socialism through the development of capitalism, while the countryside was moving towards socialism through non-capitalist evolution.

According to the Social Revolutionaries, small peasant labor farming is capable of defeating large ones because it moves toward the development of collectivism through community and cooperation. But this possibility can develop only after the liquidation of landownership, the transfer of land into the public domain, the destruction of private ownership of land and its equalization and redistribution.

Behind the revolutionary calls of the Social Revolutionaries were deep peasant democracy, the ineradicable desire of the peasant for land “levelling”, the elimination of landownership and “freedom” in its broadest sense, including the active participation of the peasantry in government. At the same time, the Socialist Revolutionaries, like the populists in their time, continued to believe in the innate collectivism of the peasants, linking their socialist aspirations with it.

In the agrarian part of the program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party it is written that “in matters of reorganization of land relations P.S.R. is based on communal and labor views, traditions and forms of life of the Russian peasantry, on the conviction that the land is no one’s and the right to use it is given only by labor.” Chernov generally believed that for a socialist “There is nothing more dangerous than the imposition of private property, teaching the peasant, who still believes that the land is “nobody’s”, “free” (or “God’s”), to the idea of ​​​​the right to trade, to make money in land . It is here that the danger lies in the inculcation and strengthening of that “proprietary fanaticism,” which is then capable of causing a lot of trouble for socialists.”

The Social Revolutionaries declared that they would stand for the socialization of the land. With the help of socialization of the land, they hoped to protect the peasant from becoming infected with the private property psychology, which would become a brake on the path to socialism in the future.

Socialization of land presupposes the right to use the land, to cultivate it with one’s own labor without the help of hired workers. The amount of land should be no less than what is needed for a comfortable existence and no more than what the family can cultivate without resorting to hired labor. Land was redistributed by taking away from those who had a surplus in favor of those who had a shortage of land, to an equalizing labor standard.

There is no private ownership of land. All lands come under the management of central and local bodies of people's self-government (and not into state ownership). The bowels of the earth remain with the state.

Mainly with their revolutionary agrarian program, the Socialist Revolutionaries attracted peasants to themselves. The Social Revolutionaries did not identify the “socialization” (socialization) of the land with socialism as such. But they were convinced that on its basis, with the help of the most diverse types and forms of cooperation, a new, collective agriculture would be created in the future in a purely evolutionary way. Speaking at the First Congress of the Social Revolutionaries (December 1905 - January 1906), V.M. Chernov stated that the socialization of the land is only the foundation for organic work in the spirit of the socialization of peasant labor.

The attractive force of the Socialist Revolutionary program for the peasants was that it adequately reflected their organic rejection of landownership, on the one hand, and the desire to preserve the community and equal distribution of land, on the other.

So, egalitarian land use established two basic norms: the provision norm (consumer) and the marginal norm (labor). The consumer-minimum norm meant the provision for the use of one family of such an amount of land, as a result of cultivation of which in ways usual for the given area, the most urgent needs of this family could be covered.

But the question arises, what needs should be taken as a basis? After all, based on them, it is necessary to determine the site. And the needs were different not only within the entire Russian state, but also within individual provinces and districts and depended on a number of specific circumstances.

The Social Revolutionaries considered the maximum labor standard to be the amount of land that a peasant family could cultivate without hiring labor. But this labor standard did not combine well with equal land use. The point here is the difference in the labor force of peasant farms. If we assume that for a family consisting of two adult workers, the labor norm will be “A” hectares of land, then if there are four adult workers, the norm of peasant land will not be “A + A”, as required by the idea of ​​equalization, but “A +A+a" hectares, where "a" is some additional plot of land necessary to employ the newly emerged labor force formed by a cooperation of 4 people. Thus, the simple scheme of the Social Revolutionaries still contradicted reality.

The general democratic demands and the path to socialism in the city in the Socialist Revolutionary program were practically no different from the path predetermined by the European social democratic parties. The Socialist Revolutionary program included the typical demands for a revolutionary democracy for a republic, political freedoms, national equality, and universal suffrage.

Considerable space was devoted to the national question. It was covered more volume and wider than other parties did. Such provisions were recorded as complete freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings and unions; freedom of movement, choice of occupation and freedom to strike; universal and equal suffrage for every citizen at least 20 years of age, without distinction of gender, religion or nationality, subject to a direct election system and closed voting. In addition, it was assumed that a democratic republic would be established on these principles with broad autonomy for regions and communities, both urban and rural; recognition of nations' unconditional right to self-determination; introduction of the native language into all local, public and government institutions. Establishment of compulsory, equal general secular education for all at state expense; complete separation of church and state and the declaration of religion as a private matter for everyone.

These demands were practically identical to the demands of the Social Democrats known at that time. But there were two significant additions to the Socialist Revolutionary program. They advocated the greatest possible use of federal relations between individual nationalities, and in “regions with a mixed population, the right of each nationality to a share in the budget proportional to its size, intended for cultural and educational purposes, and the disposal of these funds on the basis of self-government.”

In addition to the political field, the Socialist Revolutionary program defines measures in the field of legal, national economic, and in matters of communal, municipal and zemstvo economy. Here we are talking about election, replacement at any time and jurisdiction of all officials, including deputies and judges, and free legal proceedings. On the introduction of a progressive tax on income and inheritance, exemption from tax on small incomes. On the protection of the spiritual and physical forces of the working class in town and countryside.

On the reduction of working hours, state insurance, the prohibition of overtime work, the work of minors under 16 years of age, the restriction of the work of minors, the prohibition of child and female labor in certain branches of production and during certain periods, continuous weekly rest. The Socialist Revolutionary Party advocated the development of all kinds of public services and enterprises (free medical care, extensive credit for the development of the labor economy, communization of water supply, lighting, roads and means of communication), etc. It was written in the program that the Socialist Revolutionary Party would defend, support or tear through these measures with its revolutionary struggle.

A specific feature of the tactics of the Social Revolutionaries, inherited from the People's Volya, was individual terror directed against representatives of the highest tsarist administration (the murder of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the attempt on the life of the Moscow Governor General F.V. Dubasov, P.A. Stolypin and etc.) Total in 1905-1907. The Social Revolutionaries carried out 220 terrorist attacks. The victims of their terror during the revolution were 242 people (of which 162 people were killed). During the revolution, with such acts the Socialist Revolutionaries tried to wrest the constitution and civil liberties from the tsarist government. Terror for the Socialist Revolutionaries was the main means of fighting against the autocracy.

In general, revolutionary terror had no effect in 1905-1907. great influence on the course of events, although one should not deny its significance as a factor in the disorganization of power and the activation of the masses.

However, the Social Revolutionaries were not thugs, hung with bombs and revolvers. Mostly they were people who painfully comprehended the criteria of good and evil, their right to dispose of other people's lives. Of course, the Socialist-Revolutionaries have many victims on their conscience. But this apparent determination was not simply given to them. Savinkov, a writer, Socialist Revolutionary theorist, terrorist, political figure, writes in his “Memoirs” that Kalyaev, who killed Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in February 1905, “loved the revolution so deeply and tenderly, as only those who love it gives his life for it, seeing in terror “not only the best form of political struggle, but also a moral, perhaps religious sacrifice.”

Among the Social Revolutionaries there were also “knights without fear or reproach”, who did not experience any particular doubts. Terrorist Karpovich told Savinkov: “They are hanging us - we must hang. With clean hands and gloves, you can’t do terror. Let thousands and tens of thousands die - it is necessary to achieve victory. The peasants are burning their estates - let them burn... Now is not the time to be sentimental - in war, as in war.” And here Savinkov writes: “But he himself did not expropriate or burn the estates. And I don’t know how many people I’ve met in my life who, behind their outward harshness, would keep such a tender and loving heart as Karpovich.”

These painful, almost always insoluble contradictions of actions, characters, destinies, and ideas permeate the history of the Socialist Revolutionary movement. The Social Revolutionaries firmly believed that by eliminating those governors, grand dukes, and gendarmerie officers who would be recognized as the most criminal and dangerous enemies of freedom, they would be able to establish the reign of justice in the country. But, subjectively fighting for a certain bright future and fearlessly sacrificing themselves, the Socialist Revolutionaries actually cleared the way for immoral adventurers, devoid of any doubts or hesitations.

Not all terrorist attacks ended successfully; many militants were arrested and executed. The Socialist Revolutionary terror led to unnecessary casualties among revolutionaries and diverted their strength and material resources from working among the masses. In addition, the revolutionaries actually committed lynching, although they justified their actions by the interests of the people and the revolution. One violence inevitably gave rise to another, and the spilled blood was usually washed away with new blood, creating some kind of vicious circle.

Most of the minor attempts remained unknown, but one murder by 20-year-old girl Maria Spiridonova of the Tambov “pacifier” of the peasants Luzhenovsky, thanks to the newspaper “Rus”, thundered throughout the world. The murder of Luzhenovsky showed the world all the horror of Russian reality: the cruelty of the authorities (Spiridonova was not only beaten so that the doctor could not examine for a week whether her eye was intact, but they were also raped) and brought to the point of readiness sacrificing their lives alienating young people from the government.

Thanks to the protests of the world community, Spiridonova was not executed. The execution was replaced by hard labor. The regime at the Akatui penal servitude in 1906 was soft, and there Spiridonova, Proshyan, Bitsenko - the future Left Socialist Revolutionary leaders - walked through the taiga and indulged in their wildest dreams of socialism. The Aka-Tui convicts were idealists of the highest standard, loyal comrades, unmercenaries, as alien to the everyday side of life as is possible only in Russia. For example, when in December 1917, Proshyan, appointed People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs, came to take drugs - in a blouse and tattered felt boots - the doorman did not let him go further than the front hall.

But the fact is that the entire parliamentary and Duma experience of the country’s development passed them by. By 1917 they came with 10 years of experience of hard labor or exile, perhaps greater maximalists than they were in their youth.

The Social Revolutionaries also resorted to such a very dubious means of revolutionary struggle as expropriation. This was an extreme means of replenishing the party coffers, but the “exes” concealed the threat of the revolutionaries’ activities degenerating into political banditry, especially since they were often accompanied by the murders of innocent people.

During the First Revolution, Socialist Revolutionary organizations began to grow rapidly. With the manifesto of October 17, 1905, an amnesty was declared, and revolutionary emigrants began to return. The year 1905 became the apogee of neo-populist revolutionary democracy. During this period, the party openly calls on the peasants to seize the land of the landlords, but not by individual peasants, but by entire villages or societies.

The Social Revolutionaries had different views on the role of the party in that period. The right-wing neo-populists believed that it was necessary to liquidate the illegal party, that it could move to a legal position, since political freedoms had already been won.

V. Chernov believed that this was premature. That the most pressing problem facing the party is the party's reach to the masses. He believed that a pariah who had just emerged from underground would not be isolated from the people if he used the emerging mass organizations. Therefore, the Social Revolutionaries focused on working in trade unions, councils, the All-Russian Peasant Union, the All-Russian Railway Union and the Union of Postal and Telegraph Employees.

During the years of the revolution, the Socialist Revolutionaries launched extensive propaganda and agitation activities. At various times during this period, more than 100 Socialist Revolutionary newspapers were published, proclamations, flyers, brochures, etc. were printed and distributed in millions of copies.

When the election campaign to the First State Duma began, the first party congress decided to boycott the elections. However, some Socialist Revolutionaries took part in the elections, although many of the Socialist Revolutionary organizations issued leaflets calling for a boycott of the Duma and preparations for an armed uprising. But the Central Committee of the Party in its “Bulletin” (March 1906) proposed not to force events, but to use the situation of won political freedoms to expand agitation and organized work among the masses. The Party Council (the highest body between party congresses, which included members of the Central Committee and the Central Organ and one representative each from regional organizations) adopted a special resolution on the Duma. Considering that the Duma was unable to meet the aspirations of the people, the Council at the same time noted the opposition of its majority and the presence of workers and peasants in it. From this the conclusion was drawn about the inevitability of the Duma’s struggle with the government and the need to use this struggle to develop the revolutionary consciousness and mood of the masses. The Social Revolutionaries actively influenced the peasant faction in the First Duma.

The defeat of the armed uprisings in 1905-1906, the spread of hopes for the Duma among the people and the development of constitutional illusions in connection with this, the decrease in the revolutionary pressure of the masses - all this steadily led to a change in sentiment among the Socialist Revolutionaries. In particular, this was manifested in the exaggeration of the importance of the Duma for the development of the revolutionary process and unity. The Social Revolutionaries began to view the Duma as a weapon in the struggle for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. There were hesitations in tactics towards the Cadet Party. From complete rejection of the Cadets and exposing them as traitors to the revolution, the Socialist-Revolutionaries came to the recognition that the Cadets were not enemies of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and agreements with them were possible. This was especially evident during the election campaign in the Second Duma and in the Duma itself. Then the Socialist Revolutionaries, meeting the people's socialists and Trudoviks halfway in the name of creating a populist bloc, adopted many of the tactical guidelines of the Cadets.

It is impossible to unambiguously assess the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries during the retreat of the revolution. The Socialist Revolutionary Party did not stop working, propagating its program demands and slogans, which were of a revolutionary-democratic nature. The defeat of the revolution dramatically changed the situation in which the Socialist Revolutionary Party operated. But the Socialist Revolutionaries did not consider the onset of reaction to be the end of the revolution. Chernov wrote about the inevitability of a new revolutionary explosion, and all the events of 1905-1907. viewed only as a prologue to the revolution.

The III Party Council (July 1907) identified the immediate goals: gathering strength both in the party and among the masses, and as the next task - strengthening political terror. At the same time, the participation of the Social Revolutionaries in the Third Duma was rejected. V. Chernov called on the Socialist Revolutionaries to join trade unions, cooperatives, clubs, educational societies and fight “the disdainful attitude towards all this “culturalism.” Preparations for an armed uprising were not removed from the agenda either.

But the party had no strength, it was disintegrating. The intelligentsia left the party, organizations in Russia perished under police attacks. Printing houses, warehouses with weapons and books were liquidated.

The strongest blow to the party was dealt by Stolypin's agrarian reform, aimed at destroying the community - the ideological basis of the Socialist Revolutionary "socialization".

The crisis that erupted in connection with the exposure of Yevno Azef, who for many years was an agent of the secret police and at the same time the head of the Combat Organization, a member of the Central Committee of the party, completed the process of collapse of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.

In May 1909, the V Party Council accepted the resignation of the Central Committee. A new Central Committee was elected. But soon he too ceased to exist. The party began to be led by a group of figures called the “Foreign Delegation”, and the “Banner of Labor” gradually began to lose its position as the central body.

World War I caused another split in the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The overwhelming majority of Socialist Revolutionaries abroad zealously defended the positions of social chauvinism. The other part, led by V.M. Chernov and M.A. Nathanson took internationalist positions.

In the brochure “War and the Third Force,” Chernov wrote that the duty of the left movement in socialism is to oppose “any idealization of war and any liquidation - in view of war - of the basic internal work of socialism.” The international labor movement must be the “third force” that is called upon to intervene in the struggle of the imperialist forces. All the efforts of left-wing socialists should be directed towards its creation and the development of a general socialist peace program.

V.M. Chernov called on the socialist parties to move “to a revolutionary attack on the foundations of bourgeois domination and bourgeois property.” He defined the tactics of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in these conditions as “transforming the military crisis experienced by the civilized world into a revolutionary crisis.” Chernov wrote that it is possible that Russia will be the country that will give impetus to the reorganization of the world on socialist principles.

The February Revolution of 1917 was a major turning point in the history of Russia. The autocracy fell. By the summer of 1917, the Socialist Revolutionaries became the largest political party, numbering over 400 thousand people in their ranks. Having a majority in the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks on February 28, 1917 rejected the opportunity to form a Provisional Government from the Council, and on March 1 decided to entrust the formation of the government to the Provisional Committee of the State Duma.

In April 1917, Chernov, together with a group of Socialist Revolutionaries, arrived in Petrograd. At the III Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (May-June 1917), he was again elected to the Central Committee. After the April crisis of the Provisional Government, on May 4, 1917, the Petrograd Soviet adopted a resolution on the formation of a coalition Provisional Government, which now included 6 socialist ministers, including V.M. Chernov as Minister of Agriculture. He also became a member of the Main Land Committee, which was entrusted with the task of preparing land reform.

Now the Socialist Revolutionary Party had the opportunity to directly implement its program. But she chose the top version of agrarian reform. The resolution of the Third Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party proposed to carry out only preparatory measures for the future socialization of the land until the Constituent Assembly. Before the Constituent Assembly, all lands had to be transferred to the jurisdiction of local land committees, which were given the right to decide all issues related to the lease. A law was passed banning land transactions before the Constituent Assembly.

This law caused a storm of indignation among landowners, who were deprived of the right to sell their lands on the eve of land reform. An instruction was issued by the Land Committee, which established supervision over the exploitation of arable and hay lands and the accounting of uncultivated land. Chernov believed that some changes in land relations were necessary before the Constituent Assembly. But not a single law or instruction that seriously addressed the peasantry was issued.

After the July political crisis, the agrarian policy of the Ministry of Agriculture shifted to the right. But the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Party feared that the peasant movement would completely get out of control, and they tried to put pressure on the Cadets to adopt temporary agrarian legislation. To implement this legislation, it was necessary to break with the policy of conciliation. However, the same Chernov, who was the first to realize that it was impossible to work in the same government with the Cadets, did not dare to break with them.

He chose maneuvering tactics, trying to convince the bourgeoisie and landowners to make concessions. At the same time, he called on the peasants not to seize landowners’ lands and not to stray from the position of “legality.” In August, Chernov resigned; it coincided with the attempted mutiny of General L.G. Kornilov. In connection with the Kornilov rebellion, the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionaries initially sided with the formation of a “uniform socialist government,” i.e. government, consisting of representatives of socialist parties, but soon again began to look for a compromise with the bourgeoisie.

The new government, in which the majority of portfolios belonged to socialist ministers, turned to repression against workers, soldiers, and began to participate in punitive measures against the countryside, which led to peasant uprisings.

So, being in power after the fall of the autocracy, the Social Revolutionaries were unable to implement their main program demands

It must be said that already in the spring - summer of 1917, the left wing, numbering 42 people, declared itself in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which in November 1917 was constituted into the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party. The left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party revealed fundamental differences on programmatic issues with the rest of the party.

For example, on the issue of land, they insisted on transferring the land to us peasants without ransom. They were against the coalition with the Cadets, opposed the war, and took internationalist positions towards it.

After the July crisis, the Left Socialist Revolutionary faction issued a declaration in which it sharply dissociated itself from the policies of its Central Committee. The left became more active in Riga, Reveli, Novgorod, Taganrog, Saratov, Minsk, Pskov, Odessa, Moscow, Tver and Kostroma provinces. Since the spring, they have occupied strong positions in Voronezh, Kharkov, Kazan, and Kronstadt.

The Socialist Revolutionaries also reacted differently to the October Revolution. Representatives of all major socialist parties in Russia were present at the Second Congress of Soviets. The left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party supported the Bolsheviks. The right-wing Social Revolutionaries believed that an armed coup had occurred, which was not based on the will of the majority of the people. And this will only lead to civil war. At the Second Congress of Soviets, they insisted on the formation of a government based on all layers of democracy, including the Provisional Government. But the idea of ​​negotiations with the Provisional Government was rejected by the majority of delegates. And the Right Socialist Revolutionaries abandon the congress. Together with the right-wing Mensheviks, they set a goal to gather social forces in order to provide stubborn resistance to the Bolsheviks’ attempts to seize power. They do not give up hope of convening a Constituent Assembly.

On the evening of October 25, 1917, during the Second Congress of Soviets, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries organized a faction. They remained at the congress and insisted on the formation of a government based, if not on all, then at least on the majority of revolutionary democracy. The Bolsheviks invited them to join the first Soviet government, but the left rejected this offer, because this would have completely severed their ties with the party members who left the congress. And this would exclude the possibility of their mediation between the Bolsheviks and the departed part of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. In addition, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries believed that 2-3 ministerial portfolios were too few to reveal their own identity, not to get lost, and not to end up as “petitioners in the Bolshevik front.”

Undoubtedly, the refusal to enter the Council of People's Commissars was not final. The Bolsheviks, realizing this, clearly outlined the platform for a possible agreement. With each passing hour, the leadership of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries became increasingly aware that isolation from the Bolsheviks was disastrous. M. Spiridonova showed particular activity in this direction, and her voice was listened to with extraordinary attention: she was the recognized leader, the soul, the conscience of the left wing of the party.

For cooperation with the Bolsheviks, the IV Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party confirmed the previously adopted resolutions of the Central Committee on the exclusion of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries from its ranks. In November 1917, the left formed their own party - the party of left socialists-revolutionaries.

In December 1917, the Left Social Revolutionaries shared power in the government with the Bolsheviks. Steinberg became People's Commissar of Justice, Proshyan - People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs, Trutovsky - People's Commissar for Local Self-Government, Karelin - People's Commissar of Property of the Russian Republic, Kolegaev - People's Commissar of Agriculture, Brilliantov and Algasov - People's Commissars without portfolios.

The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were also represented in the government of Soviet Ukraine and occupied responsible positions in the Red Army, in the navy, in the Cheka, and in local Soviets. On a parity basis, the Bolsheviks shared the leadership of the departments of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.

What did the program requirements of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party include? In the political field: the dictatorship of the working people, the Soviet Republic, the free federation of Soviet republics, the fullness of local executive power, direct, equal, secret voting, the right to recall deputies, election by labor organizations, the duty of reporting to voters. Ensuring freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly and association. The right to existence, to work, to land, to upbringing and education.

In matters of the work program: workers' control over production, which is understood not as the giving of factories and factories to workers, railways to railway workers, etc., but as organized centralized control over production on a national scale, as a transitional stage to nationalization and socialization enterprises.

For the peasantry: the demand for the socialization of the land. The Socialist Revolutionary Party set itself the task of winning the peasants to its side. It was the concession of the Bolsheviks to the peasants in the Decree on Land (the Decree on Land is a Socialist Revolutionary project) that largely contributed to the establishment of cooperation between the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries explained that the socialization of land is a transitional form of land use. Socialization did not involve first driving landowners from their homes, and then proceeding to a general equalization of allotment, starting with farm laborers and proletarians. On the contrary, the objectives of socialization were to take away from those who have a surplus in favor of those who have a shortage of land to equalize the labor standard, and to give everyone the opportunity to work on the land.

According to the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, peasant communities, legitimately fearing the fragmentation of land into small plots, should strengthen forms of joint cultivation and establish quite consistent, from the point of view of socialism, norms for the distribution of labor products among consumers, regardless of the working capacity of one or another member of the working community.

In their opinion, since the basis of socialization is the principle of creation, hence the desire to conduct collective forms of economy as more productive compared to individual ones. By increasing productivity, establishing new social relations in the countryside, and implementing the principle of collective rights, the socialization of the land leads directly to socialist forms of economy.

At the same time, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries believed that the unification of peasants and workers is the key to further successful struggle for a better future for the oppressed classes, for socialism.

So, the right Socialist Revolutionaries characterized the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks as a crime against the Motherland and the revolution. Chernov considered a socialist revolution in Russia impossible, since the country was economically upset and economically undeveloped. He called what happened on October 25 an anarcho-Bolshevik uprising. All hope was placed on the transfer of power to the Constituent Assembly, although the importance of the activities of the Soviets was emphasized.

In principle, the Social Revolutionaries did not object to the slogans “Power to the Soviets!”, “Land to the peasants!”, “Peace to the peoples!” They only stipulated their legal implementation by the decision of the popularly elected Constituent Assembly. Having failed to regain lost power peacefully through the idea of ​​​​creating a homogeneous socialist government, they made a second attempt - through the Constituent Assembly.

As a result of the first free elections, 715 deputies were elected to the Constituent Assembly, of which 370 were Socialist Revolutionaries, i.e. 51.8%. January 5, 1918 Constituent Assembly chaired by V.M. Chernov adopted a law on land, an appeal to the Allied powers for peace, and proclaimed the Russian Democratic Federative Republic. But all this was secondary and had no significance. The Bolsheviks were the first to implement these decrees.

The Bolsheviks dispersed the Constituent Assembly. And the Socialist Revolutionaries determined that the elimination of Bolshevik power was the next and urgent task of all democracy. The Socialist Revolutionary Party could not come to terms with the policies pursued by the Bolsheviks. At the beginning of 1918, Chernov wrote that the policy of the RCP (b) “is trying to jump, by means of decrees, over the natural organic processes of the growth of the proletariat in political, cultural and social relations, representing some kind of original, original, truly Russian “decree socialism” or "socialist maternity leave".

According to the Central Committee of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, “in this situation, socialism turns into a caricature, being reduced to a system of equalizing everyone to a lower and even decreasing level ... of all culture and the smuggled revival of the most primitive forms of economic life,” therefore, “Bolshevik communism is nothing about “has nothing in common with socialism and therefore can only compromise itself.”

They criticized the economic policy of the Bolsheviks, the measures they proposed to overcome the industrial crisis and their agrarian program. The Social Revolutionaries believed that the gains of the February Revolution were partly stolen, partly mutilated by the Bolshevik government, that “this coup” caused a fierce civil war throughout the country, “without Brest and the October Revolution, Russia would have already tasted the benefits of peace,” and so Russia is still engulfed in an unbreakable fiery ring of fratricidal war; The Bolsheviks’ stake on world revolution only means that they “believed in their own strength” and were waiting for “salvation only from the outside.”

The intransigence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries towards the Bolsheviks was also determined by the fact that “the Bolsheviks, having rejected the basic principles of socialism - freedom and democracy - and replacing them with dictatorship and the tyranny of an insignificant minority over the majority, thereby erased themselves from the ranks of socialism.”

In June 1918, the right Socialist Revolutionaries led the overthrow of Soviet power in Samara, then in Simbirsk and Kazan. They acted with the help of Czechoslovak legionnaires and the people's army, created within the framework of the Samara Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch).

As Chernov later recalled, they explained their armed uprising in the Volga region as an illegal dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. They saw at the beginning of the civil war a struggle between two democracies - the Soviet one and the one that recognized the power of the Constituent Assembly. They justified their speech by the fact that the food policy of the Soviet government aroused the indignation of the peasants, and they, as a peasant party, should have led the fight for their rights.

However, there was no unity among the leaders of the right Socialist Revolutionaries. The most right-wing of them insisted on abandoning the Brest Peace Treaty, on resuming Russia's participation in the world war, and only after that transferring power to the Constituent Assembly. Others, with more left-wing views, called for the resumption of the work of the Constituent Assembly, were against the civil war and advocated cooperation with the Bolsheviks, because “Bolshevism turned out to be not a fleeting storm, but a long-term phenomenon, and the influx of masses towards it at the expense of central democracy undoubtedly continues in the outlying regions of Russia.”

After the defeat of the Samara Komuch by the Red Army, the right Socialist Revolutionaries in September 1918 took an active part in the Ufa State Conference, which elected the Directory, which pledged to transfer power to the Constituent Assembly on January 1, 1919, if it met.

However, on November 18, the Kolchak coup took place. Members of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party living in Ufa, having learned about Kolchak’s coming to power, accepted an appeal to fight the dictator. But soon many of them were arrested by the Kolchakites. Then the remaining members of the Samara Committee of the Constituent Assembly, headed by its chairman V.K. Volsky declared their intention to stop the armed struggle with Soviet power and enter into negotiations with it. But their condition for cooperation was the creation of an all-Russian government consisting of representatives of all socialist parties and the convening of a new Constituent Assembly.

At Lenin’s suggestion, the Ufa Revolutionary Committee entered into negotiations with them without any conditions. An agreement was reached, and this part of the Social Revolutionaries created their own group “People”.

In response, the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party stated that the actions taken by Volsky and others were their own business. The Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionaries still believes that “the creation of a united revolutionary front against any dictatorship is considered possible by the Socialist Revolutionary organizations only on the basis of fulfilling the basic demands of democracy: the convening of the Constituent Assembly and the restoration of all freedoms (speech, press, assembly, agitation, etc. ), won by the February Revolution, and subject to the end of the civil war within democracy."

Over the following years, the Socialist Revolutionaries did not play any active role in the political and state life of the country. At the IX Council of their party (June 1919), they decided to “stop the armed struggle against the Bolshevik government and replace it with an ordinary political struggle.”

But 2 years later, in July - August 1921, the X Council of the Socialist Revolutionary Party conspiratorially met in Samara, at which it was stated that “the question of the revolutionary overthrow of the dictatorship of the Communist Party with all the force of iron necessity is put on the agenda , becomes a question of the existence of Russian labor democracy.”

By that time, the Socialist Revolutionaries had 2 leadership centers: “Foreign delegation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party” and “Central Bureau of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in Russia.” The first ones faced a long emigration, publishing magazines, writing memoirs. Secondly, the political trial in July - August 1922.

At the end of February 1922, the upcoming trial of the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries on charges of actions committed during the civil war was announced in Moscow. The accusation against the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was based on the testimony of two former members of the Combat Organization - Lydia Konopleva and her husband G. Semenov (Vasiliev). By that time, they were not members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and according to rumors they belonged to the RCP (b). They presented their testimony in a brochure published in February 1922 in Berlin, which, in the opinion of the Socialist Revolutionary leaders, was cynical, falsifying and provocative. This brochure alleged the involvement of leading party functionaries in attempts to assassinate V.I. Lenina, L.D. Trotsky, G.E. Zinoviev and other Bolshevik leaders at the beginning of the revolution.

Figures of the revolutionary movement with an impeccable past, who spent many years in pre-revolutionary prisons and hard labor, were involved in the 1922 trial. The announcement of the trial was preceded by a long stay (since 1920) of the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in prison without the presentation of a corresponding specific charge. The notice of the trial was perceived by everyone (without distinction of political affiliation) as a warning about the imminent execution of old revolutionaries and as a harbinger of a new stage in the liquidation of the socialist movement in Russia. (In the spring of 1922 there were widespread arrests among the Mensheviks of Russia).

At the head of the public struggle against the upcoming reprisal against the Socialist Revolutionaries were the leaders of the Menshevik Party, who were in exile in Berlin. Under pressure from public opinion in socialist Europe, N. Bukharin and K. Radek gave written assurances that the death sentence would not be imposed at the upcoming trial and would not even be requested by the prosecutors.

However, Lenin found this agreement to infringe on the sovereignty of Soviet Russia, and People's Commissar of Justice D.I. Kursky publicly stated that this agreement does not bind the Moscow court in any way. The trial, which opened in early June, lasted 50 days. Prominent representatives of the Western socialist movement, who came by agreement to Moscow to defend the defendants, were subjected to organized persecution and were forced to leave the trial on June 22. Following them, the Russian lawyers left the courtroom. The accused were left without formal legal protection. It became clear that the death sentence for the leaders of the socialist revolutionaries was inevitable.

“The trial of the socialist revolutionaries took on the cynical character of a public preparation for the murder of people who sincerely served the cause of the liberation of the Russian people,” wrote M. Gorky to A. France.

The verdict in the Socialist Revolutionary case, passed on August 7, provided for the death penalty in relation to 12 members of the party's Central Committee. However, by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of August 9, the execution of the death sentence was suspended for an indefinite period and made dependent on the resumption or non-resumption of the hostile activities of the Socialist Revolutionary Party against the Soviet regime.

However, the decision to suspend death sentences was not immediately communicated to the convicts, and for a long time they did not know when the sentence passed on them would be carried out.

Later, on January 14, 1924, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee again considered the issue of the death penalty and replaced execution with a five-year prison sentence and exile.

In March 1923, the Socialist Revolutionaries decided to dissolve their party in Soviet Russia. In November 1923, a congress of Socialist Revolutionaries who were in exile took place. A foreign organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was organized. But the Socialist Revolutionary emigration also split into groups. Chernov’s group was in the position of a kind of “party center,” claiming special powers to speak on behalf of the party abroad, allegedly received by it from the Central Committee.

But his group soon broke up, because... none of its members recognized a single leadership and did not want to obey Chernov. In 1927, Chernov was forced to sign a protocol according to which he did not have emergency powers giving him the right to speak on behalf of the party. As the leader of an influential political party V.M. Chernov ceased to exist from the moment of emigration and due to the complete collapse of the Socialist Revolutionary Party both in Russia and abroad.

During the period 1920-1931. V.M. Chernov settled in Prague, where he published the magazine “Revolutionary Russia”. All his journalism and published works were of a clearly anti-Soviet nature.

As for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, it must be said that, realizing the need to cooperate with the Bolsheviks, they did not accept their tactics and did not give up hope of gaining the support of the majority not only in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, but also in the governing bodies of the country.

At the First Congress of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party on November 21, 1917, M. Spiridonova said about the Bolsheviks: “No matter how alien their rough steps are to us, we are in close contact with them, because the masses follow them, brought out of a state of stagnation.”

She believed that the influence of the Bolsheviks on the masses was temporary, since the Bolsheviks “have no inspiration, no religious enthusiasm, everything breathes hatred and bitterness. These feelings are good during fierce struggles and barricades. But in the second stage of the struggle, when organic work is needed, when it is necessary to create a new life based on love and altruism, then the Bolsheviks will go bankrupt. We, keeping the behests of our fighters, must always remember the second stage of the struggle.”

The alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries was short-lived. The fact is that one of the most important issues facing the revolution was the exit from the imperialist war. It must be said that at the beginning, the majority of the PLSR Central Committee supported the conclusion of an agreement with Germany. But when in February 1918 the German delegation set new, much more difficult peace conditions, the Social Revolutionaries spoke out against concluding a treaty. And after its ratification by the IV All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries withdrew from the Council of People's Commissars.

However, M. Spiridonova continued to support the position of Lenin and his supporters. “The peace was signed not by us and not by the Bolsheviks,” she said in a polemic with Komkov at the Second Congress of the PLSR, “it was signed by need, hunger, the reluctance of the entire people - exhausted, tired - to fight. And which of us will say that the party of left socialists-revolutionaries, if it represented only power, would have acted differently than the Bolshevik party acted? Spiridonova sharply rejected the calls of some congress delegates to provoke the rupture of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and unleash a “revolutionary war” against German imperialism.

But already in June 1918, she sharply changed her position, including in relation to the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, since she closely linked it with the subsequent policy of the Bolshevik Party towards the peasants. At this time, a decree on food dictatorship was adopted, according to which all food policy was centralized and a fight was declared against all “bread holders” in the countryside. The Social Revolutionaries did not object to the fight against the kulaks, but they were afraid that the blow would fall on the small and middle peasantry. The decree obligated every owner of grain to hand over it, declared everyone who had a surplus and did not take it to dumping points as enemies of the people.

The opposition of the rural poor to the “toiling peasantry” seemed senseless and even blasphemous to the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. They called the committees of the poor nothing more than “committees of idlers.” Spiridonova accused the Bolsheviks of curtailing the socialization of the land, replacing it with nationalization, of a food dictatorship, of organizing food detachments that forcibly requisitioned bread from the peasants, and of establishing committees of the poor.

At the V Congress of Soviets (July 4-10, 1918), Spiridonova warned: “We will fight on the ground, and the committees of the rural poor will not have a place for themselves... if the Bolsheviks do not stop imposing committees of the poor, then the left socialist revolutionaries will take the same revolvers, the same bombs that they used in the fight against tsarist officials.”

Kamkov echoed her: “We will throw out not only your detachments, but also your committees.” According to Kamkov, workers joined these detachments to plunder the village.

This was confirmed by the letters of the peasants, which they sent to the Central Committee of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party and personally to Spiridonova: “When the Bolshevik detachment approached, they put all their shirts and even women’s sweaters on themselves in order to prevent pain on the body, but the Red Army soldiers became so skilled that they had two shirts down at once -fell into the body of a man - a worker. They then soaked them in a bathhouse or simply in a pond; some did not lie down on their backs for several weeks. They took everything clean from us, all the women’s clothes and canvases, the men’s jackets, watches and shoes, and there’s nothing to say about bread...

Our mother, tell me who to go to now, everyone in our village is poor and hungry, we didn’t sow well - there weren’t enough seeds - we had three fists, we robbed them long ago, we don’t have a “bourgeoisie”, we have allotted ¾ - ½ per head, there was no purchased land, but an indemnity and a fine were imposed on us, we beat our Bolshevik commissar, he hurt us painfully. We were spanked a lot, we can’t tell you. Those who had a party card from the communists were not flogged.”

The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries believed that such a situation in the countryside had developed because the Bolsheviks followed Germany’s lead, gave it all the country’s breadbaskets, and doomed the rest of Russia to famine.

On June 24, 1918, the Central Committee of the PLSR decided to break the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by organizing terrorist attacks against the most prominent representatives of German imperialism. On July 6, 1918, the German Ambassador to Russia, Count Mirbach, was killed by the Left Social Revolutionaries. For a long time there was a point of view that this was an anti-Soviet, anti-Bolshevik rebellion. But the documents indicate otherwise. The Central Committee of the PLSR explained that the murder was carried out in order to stop the conquest of working Russia by German capital. This, by the way, was confirmed by Ya.M. Sverdlov, speaking at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on July 15, 1918.

After the events of July 6-7, the Socialist Revolutionary Party went underground, according to the decision of its Central Committee. But since a limited circle of people knew about the rebellion and its preparation, many Socialist Revolutionary organizations condemned the rebellion.

In August - September 1918, two independent parties were formed from among the left Socialist Revolutionaries who condemned the rebellion: revolutionary communists and populists - communists. Many printed organs of the Socialist Revolutionaries were closed, cases of leaving the party became more frequent, and contradictions between the “tops” and “bottoms” of the left Socialist Revolutionaries grew. The ultra-left created the terrorist organization “All-Russian Headquarters of Revolutionary Partisans.” However, the civil war again and again raised the question of the unacceptability of struggle - especially armed, terrorist - against the Bolsheviks. It is characteristic that it was in the summer of 1919, at the most dramatic moment, when Soviet power was hanging by a thread, that the Central Committee of the PLSR decided by a majority vote to support the ruling party.

In October 1919, a circular letter was distributed among Left Socialist Revolutionary organizations calling on various trends in the party to unite on the basis of renouncing confrontation with the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). And in April - May 1920, in connection with the Polish offensive, it was recognized as necessary to actively participate in the life of the Soviets. A specially adopted resolution contained a call to fight counter-revolution, support the Red Army, participate in social construction and overcome devastation.

But this was not the generally accepted view. Disagreements led to the fact that in the spring of 1920 the Central Committee actually ceased to exist as a single body. The party slowly faded away. Government repression played a significant role in this. Some of the leaders of the PLSR were in prison or exile, some emigrated, and some withdrew from political activity. Many at different times joined the RCP (b). By the end of 1922, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party virtually ceased to exist.

As for M. Spiridonova, she was arrested several times after she retired from political activity: in 1923 for attempting to flee abroad, in 1930 during the persecution of former socialists. The last time was in 1937, when the “final blow” was dealt to the former socialists. She was charged with preparing an assassination attempt on members of the government of Bashkiria and K.E. Voroshilov, who was planning to come to Ufa.

By that time, she was serving her previous sentence, working as an economist in the credit planning department of the Bashkir office of the State Bank. She no longer posed any political threat. A sick, almost blind woman. The only dangerous thing was her name, thoroughly forgotten in the country, but often mentioned in socialist circles abroad.

January 7, 1938 M.A. Spiridonova was sentenced to 25 years in prison. She served her sentence in Oryol prison. But shortly before German tanks burst into Oryol, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR changed its verdict, imposing capital punishment on her. On September 11, 1941, the sentence was carried out. Kh.G. was shot together with Spiridonova. Rakovsky, D.D. Pletnev, F.I. Goloshchekin and other Soviet and party workers, whom the administration of the Oryol prison and the NKVD did not find it possible, unlike criminals, to evacuate deep into the country.

Thus, both the right and left Socialist Revolutionaries lived out their lives in prisons and exile. Almost everyone who did not die earlier died during Stalin's terror.

Also - the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Socialist Revolutionary Party (from the abbreviation of the first letters - S.-R.), the Socialist Revolutionaries.

Revolutionary, socialist political party of Russia in the first third of the 20th century. The name “socialist-revolutionaries”, as a rule, denoted those representatives of Russian socialism who associated themselves with the political traditions and ideas of “Narodnaya Volya”. At the same time, this term made it possible to distance oneself from both reformist populism with its theory of “small deeds” and from Marxism with its idea of ​​​​the obligatory evolution of socio-economic relations through capitalism to socialism.

Currently, the term socialist revolutionaries is not used. The term “Socialist Revolutionaries”, solely due to the coincidence of the first letters in the name of the party, is applied by journalists, political analysts, leaders of individual political parties and movements to the “A Just Russia” party. However, this organization does not have any ideological and historical continuity from the genuine Socialist Revolutionaries.

Detailed characteristics

The Socialist Revolutionary Party arose at the beginning of the 20th century. based on the unification of a number of revolutionary organizations that considered themselves as continuers of the political traditions of Narodnaya Volya. Having gained fame for terrorist activities and participation in the revolutionary events of 1905 - 1907, it became one of the most influential revolutionary parties, a rival of Russian Social Democracy for influencing the minds of the workers, peasants, and intelligentsia. In 1917, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was the most massive political force in Russia. Its representatives had great influence in the Soviets and other local government bodies, and were members of the Provisional Government. The success of the Social Revolutionaries in the elections to the Constituent Assembly was also impressive. However, the party experienced an internal crisis, caused largely by ideological differences. Its result was the split of the AKP into three independent movements. During the Second Russian Revolution and the Civil War, the Socialist Revolutionaries were defeated in the fight against the Bolsheviks. In the 1920s - early 1930s. As a result of repressions by the Bolshevik dictatorship, the AKP was defeated and finally left the political arena in the USSR. At the same time, part of the party continued its activities in emigration until the end of the 1960s.

Historical context

The first Socialist Revolutionary organizations appeared in the mid-1890s. These included the Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries (1893, Bern) and the Union of Socialist Revolutionaries (SSR) (1895 - 1896), organized in Saratov and then operating in Moscow. The first, unsuccessful, attempts to unite them into a single party were made at congresses in Voronezh, Poltava (1897) and Kyiv (1898).

Erupted in the 1890s. The economic crisis cast doubt on the optimistic forecast of Marxists regarding the progressive role of capitalism, demonstrating that the policy of industrialization could only be successful with the modernization of the political system and agriculture. These circumstances contributed to the growth of the influence of the Socialist Revolutionaries among the radical intelligentsia, making their ideas about Russia’s special path to socialism and the great importance of the peasantry in the revolution again popular. The revision of Marxism carried out by E. Bernstein and his followers in the 1890s also influenced the theoretical work of the Socialist Revolutionaries. Thus, V.M. Chernov, who became the most prominent theoretician of the Socialist Revolutionary movement, in his works refuted ideas about the petty-bourgeois nature of the working peasantry, emphasizing the commonality of its socio-economic interests with industrial workers.

In 1900, a number of Socialist Revolutionary organizations in the south of Russia united into the southern Socialist Revolutionary Party. At the same time, in Paris, on the initiative of V.M. Chernov created the Agrarian Socialist League (ASL). At the beginning of December 1901, at a secret meeting in Berlin, E. Azef and M. Selyuk (representing the USSR), and G.A. Gershuni (representative of the southern AKP), without consultation with members of their organizations, decided to unite them into the All-Russian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries.

The message about the formation of the AKP was published in January 1902 on the pages of the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia”. By 1905, it included more than 40 committees and groups, uniting about 2 - 2.5 thousand people. The social composition of the AKP was characterized by the predominance of the intelligentsia, pupils and students. Only about 28% of its members were workers and peasants. In 1902 - 1904 A number of organizations were created locally, focused on working with various segments of the population (Peasant Union of the AKP, Union of People's Teachers, workers' unions).

Management and bodies

The governing body of the party was initially the Commission for Relations with Foreign Countries (consisting of E.K. Breshkovskaya, P.P. Kraft and G.A. Gershuni), and then the Central Committee, which consisted of two branches (St. Petersburg and Moscow). By 1905 it included about 20 people. There was also a Party Council convened to resolve emergency tactical and organizational issues, consisting of members of the Central Committee, delegates from the regional, as well as the Moscow and St. Petersburg committees. There were more than 10 regional committees that coordinated the activities of local organizations. The central printed organ of the AKP was initially the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia”, and since 1908 - “Znamya Truda”. Its leaders were M.R., who had the right to co-opt the Central Committee. Gots and E.F. Azef, by that time was already actively collaborating with the secret police, giving out information about the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries and at the same time playing a double game in his own interests. The leading theorist of the PSR was V.M. Chernov. Even before the formation of a unified AKP G.A. Gershuni began the formation of its Combat Organization, intended to conduct central terror against statesmen, in the opinion of the party leadership, who had most discredited themselves in the eyes of the public. She was completely autonomous in the party. The Central Committee did not have the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the BO, only by choosing the object of the action. The post of head of the organization was occupied by Gershuni (1901 - May 1903) and Azef (1903 - 1908). In April 1902, the BO carried out the first terrorist act (the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs D.S. Sipyagin by S.V. Balmashov). During the existence of the organization, its membership included 10 - 30, and in total - more than 80 people.

Views

The Social Revolutionaries recognized pluralism in the sphere of theory. The party included both adherents of the ideas of subjective sociology N.K. Mikhailovsky, as well as adherents of the teachings of Machism, neo-Kantianism and empirio-criticism. The basis of the ideology of the AKP was the populist concept of Russia’s special path to socialism. Leading party theorist, V.M. Chernov explained the need for such a path by its special situation. the fact that in its development it is located between industrial and agrarian-colonial countries. Unlike developed industrial countries, Russian capitalism, in his opinion, was dominated by destructive tendencies, which was especially evident in relation to agriculture.

The class differentiation of society, according to Socialist Revolutionary theorists, was determined by the attitude towards work and sources of income. Therefore, they included workers, peasants and intellectuals in the labor, revolutionary camp. In other words, people who live by their own labor, without exploiting others. The peasantry was considered its main strength. At the same time, the duality of the social nature of this layer of the population was recognized, since the peasant is both a worker and an owner. The Social Revolutionaries also noted that the working class, due to its high concentration in large Russian cities, poses a serious danger to the ruling regime. The connection between workers and the village was considered as one basis of worker-peasant unity. The Russian intelligentsia, assessed as anti-bourgeois in its worldview, was supposed to bring the ideas of socialism to the peasantry and proletariat. The future revolution was considered by the Socialist Revolutionaries as a “social” revolution, a transitional option between bourgeois and socialist. One of its main goals was the socialization of the land.

Party program

The program and temporary organizational charter of the AKP were approved at the Founding Congress of the party in Finland on December 29, 1905 - January 4, 1906.

It was assumed that the Constituent Assembly would be convened on a democratic basis, the party would come to power by winning a majority in democratic local elections, and then in the Constituent Assembly. The transition to socialism was then supposed to be carried out in a reformist way. The most important demands of the program were: the elimination of autocracy and the establishment of a democratic republic, political and civil liberties. The Social Revolutionaries advocated the introduction of federal relations between nationalities, recognition of their right to self-determination and autonomy of self-government bodies. The central point of the economic part of the AKP program was the requirement for the socialization of land. It was supposed to abolish private ownership of land, and then turn it into public property with a ban on purchase and sale. It was to be managed by the bodies of people's self-government. Provision was made for equal-labor use of the land (subject to its cultivation by one’s own labor, personal or collective). Its distribution was assumed to be based on consumer and labor standards. Socialization was supposed to solve the “labor issue”, the AKP program proclaimed a limitation of the working day to 8 hours, the introduction of a minimum wage, insurance of workers at the expense of the state and enterprise owners, legislative labor protection under the control of an elected factory inspectorate, freedom of trade unions, the right of workers’ organizations participate in the organization of work at the enterprise. It was planned to introduce free medical care.

A variety of methods and means of struggle were recognized. Among them are propaganda and agitation, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggle, including strikes, demonstrations, and uprisings. Individual terror was used for agitation, arousing the revolutionary forces of society, and also as a measure to combat the arbitrariness of the government. The terrorist acts of the BO created wide popularity for the party. The most famous among them is the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs D.S. Sipyagin (04/2/1902) and V.K. Plehve (07/15/1904). For the brutal suppression of peasant unrest in the spring of 1902, the Kharkov governor I.M. was killed. Obolensky (June 26, 1902), and for the shooting of a workers’ demonstration in the city of Zlatoust - Ufa governor N.M. Bogdanovich (05/06/1903). The Socialist Revolutionaries carried out active agitation and propaganda work among the workers, forming circles and participating in mass demonstrations and strikes. The publication of literature for peasants was established, distributed in the Volga region and a number of southern and central provinces of Russia.

In 1903, a left-radical opposition appeared in the AKP, represented by a group of “agrarian terrorists” who proposed shifting the party’s main focus from political struggle to defending the social interests of the peasantry. It was supposed to call upon the peasants to resolve the agrarian question by seizing land and to use “agrarian terror.” In the context of the deterioration of the position of the autocracy in the context of the defeats of the Russo-Japanese War and the rise of the liberal movement, the leadership of the AKP relied on the creation of a broad association of political opposition. In the fall of 1904 V.M. Chernov and E.F. Azef took part in the conference of Russian opposition parties in Paris.

During the First Russian Revolution, the AKP set the main goal of its activities to overthrow the autocracy. In February 1905, the last significant act of the BO took place - the murder of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, uncle of Nicholas II, former governor-general of Moscow. In the fall of 1906, the BO was temporarily disbanded and replaced by flying combat detachments. The AKP's terror has become decentralized and directed primarily against middle and lower-level officials. At this time, the Socialist Revolutionaries participated in the preparation of a number of important revolutionary actions (strikes, demonstrations, rallies, uprisings). the most famous among them are the December armed uprising in Moscow, as well as the military uprisings in Kronstadt and Sveaborg in the summer of 1906. Many trade unions were created with the participation of the Socialist Revolutionaries. In some of them (the All-Russian Railway Union, the Postal and Telegraph Union, the Teachers' Union and a number of others), supporters of the AKP prevailed. The party gained predominant influence among the workers of a number of the largest St. Petersburg and Moscow factories, especially at the Prokhorovskaya manufactory. Numerous representatives of the Socialist Revolutionaries participated in the St. Petersburg, Moscow and a number of other Soviets of Workers' Deputies. The Social Revolutionaries carried out active work among the peasantry. Thus, in a number of Volga provinces and in the Central Black Earth region, peasant brotherhoods were created. With the support of the AKP, the All-Russian Peasant Union and the Labor Group in the State Duma were created. As a result, the number of the AKP increased significantly, reaching 60 thousand people.

Having supported the boycott of the Bulygin Duma and taken part in the All-Russian October Strike, the Socialist Revolutionaries greeted the Manifesto of October 17, 1905 with ambiguity. Most party leaders, especially E. Azef, proposed moving to constitutional methods of struggle, abandoning terror. Considering that the line of armed uprising and boycott of the elections to the First State Duma did not receive the support of broad sections of the peasantry, the Social Revolutionaries took part in a new election campaign. A faction of Socialist Revolutionaries consisting of 37 deputies was formed within the Duma. Under the agrarian project of the Socialist Revolutionaries, 104 deputy signatures were collected in the Second Duma. In 1906, the Socialist Revolutionaries called on the peasantry to boycott Stolypin’s agrarian reform, seeing it as a threat to the idea of ​​socialization of the land. Subsequently, calls were made for the peasants to boycott the owners of the farms and cuts.

Split

In 1905 - 1906 The AKP experienced a split, as a result of which moderate populist circles close to it formed the People's Socialist Party. At the same time, the radical left wing, represented by supporters of the immediate implementation of the socialist revolution in Russia, which also spoke from the position of radicalization of revolutionary terror, formed the Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists.

After the defeat of the revolution of 1905 - 1907. The AKP found itself in a state of crisis. The new tactical guidelines of the Socialist Revolutionaries were based on the fact that the June 3rd coup d'etat returned the pre-revolutionary political situation to Russia. Because of this, confidence remained in the inevitability of a new revolution. The AKP officially launched a boycott of the State Duma. It was also decided to intensify military preparations for future uprisings and to resume terror. The party crisis was aggravated by the exposure of V.L. Burtsev provocative activities of E.F. Azef. At the beginning of January 1909, the Central Committee of the AKP officially recognized the fact of his cooperation with the secret police. Attempt B.V. Savinkov's attempt to recreate the BO was unsuccessful. Due to mass arrests, disappointment and departure of a number of activists, and increased emigration, the number of the AKP sharply decreased. At the Fifth Party Council, held in May 1909, the old Central Committee resigned. Since 1912, the functions of the Central Committee were transferred to the Foreign Delegation.

Discussions and ideological divisions in the party are intensifying. A number of theorists have turned their attention to the role of cooperation in the formation of socialist relations. So, I.I. Fondaminsky assumed that the gradual development of cooperative farms would lead to the socialization of the land. A left faction of the “initiative minority” (1908 - 1909) and a right wing, grouped around the magazine “Pochin” (1912) and uniting supporters of the transition to legal activity, emerged. The “initiative minority” group was formed in Paris from members of the local Socialist Revolutionary group, who had long been in opposition to the party line. In June 1909, supporters of the “initiative minority” left the party, joining the Union of Left Social Revolutionaries.

The growth of the labor movement and opposition sentiments in Russia contributed to the growth of the ranks of the AKP, whose organizations in 1914 appeared at large enterprises in St. Petersburg, Moscow and many other cities. The party's agitation and propaganda work among the peasantry was resumed. Socialist Revolutionary legal newspapers began to be published in St. Petersburg (Trudovoy Golos, Mysl). The process of consolidation of the AKP was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War.

The Socialist Revolutionary Party was never able to develop a common party platform on the issue of attitude towards the war. As a result, among the Socialist Revolutionaries there were supporters of both defencist and internationalist positions. Defenders (Avksentyev, Argunov, Lazarev, Fondaminsky) proposed coordinating tactics and forms of combating the tasks of Russian defense. The victory of the Entente over German militarism was considered by the Socialist-Revolutionaries-defencists as a progressive phenomenon that could influence the political evolution of the Russian monarchy. The position of the internationalists was represented by Kamkov, Natanson, Rakitnikov and Chernov. They proceeded from the fact that the tsarist government was waging a war of conquest. The socialists were supposed to become a “third force” that would achieve a just world without annexations and indemnities.

The split paralyzed the activities of the Foreign Delegation. At the end of 1914, opponents of the war among the Socialist Revolutionaries began publishing the newspaper Thought in Paris. Chernov and Nathanson participated in the Zimmerwald (1915) and Kinthal (1916) international conferences of internationalists. M.A. Nathanson signed the Zimmerwald Manifesto. Chernov refused to sign it because his amendments were rejected. Defensive Socialist Revolutionaries, together with their like-minded Social Democrats, published the weekly newspaper “Call” in Paris (October 1915 - March 1917). As the external and internal situation in Russia worsened and the political crisis grew, the ideas of the Socialist Revolutionary Internationalists found more and more supporters. During the First World War, many Socialist Revolutionaries worked in legal organizations, gradually expanding the influence of the party.

Social Revolutionaries in 1917

The revolutionary events of February 1917 were attended by the Socialist Revolutionaries, led by P.A. Alexandrovich. Zenzinov and Aleksandrovich were among the initiators of the creation of the Petrograd Soviet. Representatives of the AKP were included in the first composition of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. In many other cities, the Socialist Revolutionaries were also members of the Soviets and headed revolutionary self-government bodies. The return of party leaders and activists from exile and emigration contributed to its revival. On March 2, 1917, the First Petrograd Conference of Socialist Revolutionaries took place, which elected a city committee that temporarily assumed the functions of the Central Committee. In mid-March, the publication of the new central organ of the AKP, the newspaper Delo Naroda, began. New local organizations were created. At the beginning of August, during the period of greatest popularity of the party, it included 436 organizations in 62 provinces (312 committees and 124 groups). The size of the party increased. Its maximum number in 1917 was about a million people. Since June 1917, the organ of the Central Committee of the AKP “Delo Naroda” has been one of the largest Russian newspapers. Its circulation reached 300 thousand copies.

The III Party Congress (25.05 - 4.06.1917) completed its organizational formation. In the spring of 1917, the right wing (leaders A.A. Argunov, E.K. Breshkovskaya, A.F. Kerensky) and the left wing (M.A. Nathanson, B.D. Kamkov and M.A. Spiridonova) took shape in the AKP ). The newspaper “The Will of the People” was the organ of the right Socialist Revolutionaries. The left wing of the party expressed its position on the pages of the newspaper Znamya Truda. The official course of the AKP was determined by the centrist group headed by V.M. Zenzinov, V.M. Chernov, A.R. Gots and N.D. Avksentiev. The disagreements were based on different assessments of the prospects for the development of the revolution in Russia and equally different views on the role of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in this process. The Right Social Revolutionaries believed that in Russia, as in most countries of the world, the prerequisites for the socialist reorganization of society had not yet been prepared. Under these conditions, the main task of the revolution is the democratization of the political system. They saw its implementation as possible only in a coalition with the liberal circles of the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia, represented by the Cadet Party. Only a united front of democratic forces, according to the ideologists of the right Socialist Revolutionaries, was a means of overcoming economic devastation and achieving victory over Germany. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries, on the contrary, considered it possible for Russia to transition to socialism with an imminent world revolution. Denying any blockade with the liberals, they put forward the idea of ​​a homogeneous socialist government and demanded radical social reforms. Among them was the transfer of landowners' land to the disposal of land committees. As before, the left wing of the party remained at an anti-war, internationalist point of view. The centrist Socialist Revolutionaries put forward the theory of a special, “people’s labor” revolution, preserving the capitalist system, but at the same time creating the preconditions for a socialist system. It was assumed that a temporary coalition would be maintained with all forces interested in the establishment and development of a democratic system. A temporary bloc with liberal parties was not ruled out. As an alternative to dictatorship, it was assumed that power would be transferred to a coalition of socialist parties by winning a majority through democratic means.

Although the left circles of the AKP opposed support for the Provisional Government, participating in anti-government protests on the streets of Petrograd. At the same time, many right-wingers and centrists approved of A.F.’s entry into the Provisional Government. Kerensky. After the April crisis, the leadership of the AKP recognized the need for socialists to join the cabinet in order to adjust its political course. Members of the AKP were part of three coalition governments. In the first, the posts of Minister of Justice, and then - Minister of War and Navy were held by A.F. Kerensky, the post of Minister of Agriculture was V.M. Chernov. In the second government, Kerensky served as minister-chairman, as well as military and naval minister, V.M. Chernov - Minister of Agriculture, N.D. Avksentyev - Minister of Internal Affairs. The third coalition government included Kerensky, who retained the same posts, and S.L. Maslov, who became Minister of Agriculture.

The AKP also officially declared its support for the Soviets, perceiving them not as authorities, but as a class organization of the working masses, defending their interests and controlling the Provisional Government. The Social Revolutionaries enjoyed predominant influence in the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies. Local power was supposed to be transferred to city, district dumas and zemstvos elected democratically. The Socialist Revolutionaries saw their political task in winning a majority in the elections to these self-government bodies, and then in the Constituent Assembly. In August 1917, the AKP won the elections to the city council. At the same time, the idea of ​​a direct seizure of power by the AKP, put forward at the VII Party Council by M.A., was rejected. Spiridonova.

The resolution of the Third Party Congress, reflecting the position of the centrists, was devoted to the issue of war, and included a demand for democratic peace. But right up to the end of the war, the need to maintain unity of action with the Entente allies and to help strengthen the combat potential of the army was recognized. Calls for refusal to participate in hostilities and disobedience to orders were considered unacceptable. The Left Social Revolutionaries criticized this position for preserving elements of defencism. The right wing of the party, on the contrary, demanded a complete break with the ideas of Zimmerwald.

According to the decision of the Third Congress of the AKP, the agrarian question was to be resolved by the Constituent Assembly. Up until this point, it was recognized as necessary to transfer the land to the disposal of land committees, which were supposed to prepare its fair redistribution. at that time, the AKP limited itself to achieving the repeal of Stolypin’s land laws and the adoption of a law banning land transactions. Projects for transferring lands to the jurisdiction of land committees were never approved by the Provisional Government. The III Congress of the AKP also recognized the need for state regulation of production, control over trade and finance.

In the fall of 1917, the crisis of the Socialist Revolutionary Party reached its apogee. Increasing ideological differences led to its split. On September 16, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries issued an appeal, accusing the Central Committee of a defeatist position. They called on their supporters to prepare for a separate congress. N.D. Avksentyev and A.R. Gotz, defending the position of the right Socialist Revolutionaries, advocated for the continuation of the coalition with the Cadets. V.M. Chernov, on the contrary, argued that this policy was fraught with loss of popularity of the party. However, the majority of Central Committee members at the end of September supported the coalition's tactics. The process of organizing their supporters was started by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, dissatisfied with this decision.

In response to the October coup, the Central Committee of the AKP already on October 25, 1917 issued an appeal “To all revolutionary democracy in Russia.” The actions of the Bolsheviks were condemned as a criminal act and usurpation of power. The Socialist Revolutionary faction left the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. On the initiative of the Central Committee, to unite the actions of democratic forces, the “Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution”, headed by A. Gots, was created. The Social Revolutionaries also played a decisive role in the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly, headed by AKP member V.N. Filippovsky. Representatives of the left wing, on the contrary, supported the actions of the Bolsheviks and became members of the Council of People's Commissars. In response, by a resolution of the Central Committee, and then by a decision held in Petrograd on November 26. - On December 5, 1917, at the IV Congress of the AKP, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were expelled from the party. At the same time, the congress rejected the policy of the coalition of anti-Bolshevik forces and confirmed the decision of the Central Committee to expel the far-right group of Socialist-Revolutionaries-defencists from the party.

Social Revolutionaries and Soviet power

The Social Revolutionaries won the elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, receiving 370 seats out of 715. The leader of the AKP, Chernov, was elected chairman of the VUS, which was opened on January 5, 1918 and worked for one day. After the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks, the main slogan of the party became the fight for its restoration. VIII Council of the AKP, held in Moscow from 7 to 16.05. the same year, oriented the party towards the overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship by the forces of a mass popular movement. Some of the senior officials of the AKP went abroad. In March - April 1918 N.S. Rusanov and V.V. Sukhomlin went to Stockholm, where, together with D.O. Gavronsky formed the Foreign Delegation of the AKP. At the beginning of June 1918, relying on the support of the rebellious Czechoslovak Corps, the Socialist Revolutionaries formed the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly in Samara, the chairman of which was V.K. Volsky. The formation of the People's Army of KOMUCH began. The majority of members of the Siberian Regional Duma in Tomsk also belonged to the AKP. The Provisional Siberian Government, formed on her initiative, was also headed by the Socialist-Revolutionary P.Ya. Derber. In response to the open participation of the Socialist Revolutionaries in the anti-Bolshevik armed struggle, by decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 14, 1918, they were expelled from the Soviets at all levels.

The Social Revolutionaries also had a majority at the State Conference held in Ufa in September 1918. The All-Russian Provisional Government (Directory) formed as a result of it included N.D. Avksentyev and V.M. Zenzinov. The Central Committee of the AKP criticized the policies of the Directory. After the coup that took place on November 18, 1918 in Omsk, Avksentyev and Zenzinov were arrested and deported abroad. The government of A.V. that came to power. Kolchak launched repressions against the Socialist Revolutionaries.

The consequences of the Kolchak coup were decisions made at the beginning of 1919 by the Moscow Bureau of the AKP and the conference of party leaders. Denying both the possibility of an agreement with the RCP(b) and with the White Guard forces, the Socialist Revolutionary leaders identified the danger on the right as the greatest. As a result, they decided to abandon the armed struggle against Soviet power. A group of Socialist Revolutionaries led by V.K. Volsky entered into negotiations with the Bolsheviks on close cooperation and was condemned. At the same time, the Ufa delegation called for recognizing Soviet power and uniting under its leadership to fight counter-revolution. However, the party leadership condemned her position. At the end of October 1919, Volsky’s group left the AKP, adopting the name “Minority of the Socialist Revolutionary Party” (MPSR).

By decision of February 26, 1919, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was legalized on the territory of Soviet Russia. But soon the persecution of the Socialist Revolutionaries resumed, as a reaction to their criticism of Soviet power. The publication of Delo Naroda was stopped, and a number of members of the AKP Central Committee were arrested. Despite this, the plenum of the Central Committee (April 1919) and the IX Party Council (June 1919) confirmed the decision to abandon armed confrontation with Soviet power. At the same time, it was announced that the political struggle against it would continue until the elimination of the Bolshevik dictatorship by the forces of mass popular movements.

Back in April 1917, the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Party separated from the AKP. Some of the Socialist Revolutionaries in the territories of the South of Russia and Ukraine, controlled by Denikin, legally worked in public organizations. Some of them were subjected to repression. So, for example, G.I. Schrader, who published the Rodnaya Zemlya newspaper in Yekaterinodar, was arrested. His publication was closed. The Socialist Revolutionaries also occupied leading positions in the “Committee for the Liberation of the Black Sea Province,” which led the peasant movement directed against Denikin under left-wing and democratic slogans. In 1920, the Central Committee of the AKP called on party members to continue the political struggle against the Bolsheviks. At the same time, Poland and supporters of P.N. were declared the main opponents. Wrangel. At the same time, the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party condemned the Riga Peace Treaty as a betrayal of Russia's national interests.

In Siberia, the Socialist Revolutionaries played a prominent role in the struggle against the dictatorship of Admiral A.V. Kolchak. Member of the Central Committee of the AKP F.F. Fedorovich headed the “Political Center”, which prepared an armed uprising in Irkutsk against the Kolchak regime, carried out in late December 1919 - early January 1920. The political center took power in the city into its own hands for some time. Also, the Social Revolutionaries were part of the coalition authorities operating in the Far East in 1920 - 1921. - Primorsky regional zemstvo government, and then to the government of the Far Eastern Republic.

By the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the AKP ceased its activities. The leading role in the party in August of the same year, in connection with the arrests of the Central Committee members, passed to the Central Organizational Bureau, formed back in June 1920. Some members of the Central Committee, including V.M. Chernov, by this time were in exile. The 10th Party Council, held in Samara (August 1921), recognized the accumulation of forces as the most pressing task of the Socialist Revolutionaries and called for keeping the worker-peasant masses from spontaneous uprisings that scatter their forces and provoke repression. However, in March 1921 V.M. Chernov, called on the working people of Russia for a general strike and armed struggle in support of the rebels of Kronstadt.

In the summer of 1922, a Moscow trial took place over members of the Central Committee of the AKP, accused of organizing terrorist acts against the leaders of the RCP (b) in 1918. In August, 12 people, including 8 Central Committee members, were sentenced to death by the Supreme Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was announced that the sentence would be carried out if the AKP used armed methods of struggle against Soviet power. On January 14, 1924, this sentence was replaced by a 5-year prison sentence followed by a 3-year exile. At the beginning of January 1923, under the control of the GPU, the “initiative group” of the Socialist Revolutionaries held a meeting that decided to dissolve the Petrograd organization of the AKP. In the same way, in March of the same year, the All-Russian Congress of former members of the AKP was held in Moscow, which decided to dissolve the party. In the fall of 1923, the OGPU defeated B.V.’s group. Chernov in Leningrad. At the end of 1924 E.E. Kolosov recreated the new Central Bank of the party, which had connections with the Socialist Revolutionary organizations at the Obukhov plant, at the Pedagogical Institute. N.K. Krupskaya, as well as in Kolpino, Krasnodar, Tsaritsyn and Cherepovets. At the beginning of May 1925, the last members of the Central Bank of the AKP were arrested. However, even after this, the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries on the territory of the USSR did not end. As M.V. writes Sokolov, “many of those in exile and those arrested again firmly called themselves members of the AKP or reported that they shared its platform.” Whenever possible, they maintained contact with each other, discussing the political situation in Russia. In the spring and summer of 1930, members of the AKP who were in exile in Central Asia led the development and discussion of a new party platform designed to reflect the socio-economic and political realities of the USSR. In August - September 1930, the OGPU carried out arrests among exiled Socialist Revolutionaries in Central Asia, as well as former and current members of the AKP in Moscow, Leningrad and Kazan. After this, the activities of the AKP continued only in exile.

Socialist Revolutionary emigrant organizations and publishing houses continued to exist until the 1960s. in Paris, Berlin, Prague and New York. Many AKP figures ended up abroad. Among them is N.D. Avksentyev, E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, M.V. Vishnyak, V.M. Zenzinov, O.S. Minor, V.M. Chernov and others. Since 1920, periodicals of the AKP began to be published abroad. In December of this year, V. Chernov began publishing the magazine “Revolutionary Russia” in Yuryev, and then in Revel, Berlin, and Prague. In 1921, the Social Revolutionaries published the magazine “For the People!” in Revel. Later, the magazines “The Will of Russia” (Prague, 1922 - 1932), “Modern Notes” (Paris, 1920 - 1940), etc. were also published. Most of the circulations of Socialist Revolutionary publications were illegally delivered to Russia. The publications were also distributed among the emigrants. In 1923, the first, and in 1928, the second congress of foreign organizations of the AKP took place. The literary activity of the Socialist Revolutionaries in exile continued until the end of the 1960s.

Social Revolutionaries in scientific literature

Currently, numerous research works and documentary publications are being published on the history of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the life and work of its leaders. The “terrorist” reputation has a serious influence on the modern positioning of the Social Revolutionaries, due to which the assessment of its role in the history of Russia by many modern historians, but especially by publicists, writers, and film directors, is colored in negative tones.

The struggle of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was reflected in Russian fiction at the beginning of the 20th century. First of all, the theme of terror of the Socialist-Revolutionary BO is covered in the novel by B.V. Savinkov “The Pale Horse” (1909). The storyline of another novel, “That Which Wasn’t” (1912 - 1913), is connected with the activities of the AKP during the First Russian Revolution. This novel reflects the activities of the fighting squads of the Socialist Revolutionaries, terrorist activities, and provocations. A number of stories from the history of the AKP were reflected in the novels of M.A. Osorgin “Witness to History” (1932) and “The Book of Ends” (1935).

Socialist Revolutionary Party ( from the abbreviation S R- pronounced es er, socialist revolutionaries, AKP, party s.-r.; after 1917 - Right Social Revolutionaries) - a revolutionary political party of the Russian Empire, later the Russian Republic, RSFSR. Member of the Second International.

The Socialist Revolutionary Party was created on the basis of previously existing populist organizations and occupied one of the leading places in the system of Russian political parties. It was the largest and most influential non-Marxist socialist party. Its fate was more dramatic than the fate of other parties. The year 1917 was a triumph and a tragedy for the Socialist Revolutionaries. In a short time after the February Revolution, the party became the largest political force, reached the millionth mark in its numbers, acquired a dominant position in local governments and most public organizations, and won elections to the Constituent Assembly. Its representatives held a number of key positions in the government. Her ideas of democratic socialism and a peaceful transition to it were attractive to the population. However, despite all this, the Social Revolutionaries were unable to retain power.

Encyclopedic YouTube

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  The historical and philosophical worldview of the party was substantiated by the works of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Pyotr Lavrov, Nikolai Mikhailovsky.

  The draft party program was published in May 1906 in the newspaper Revolutionary Russia. The project, with minor changes, was approved as the party program at its first congress in early January 1906. This program remained the main document of the party throughout its existence. The main author of the program was the main theoretician of the party, Viktor Chernov.

  The Social Revolutionaries were the direct heirs of the old populism, the essence of which was the idea of ​​​​the possibility of Russia's transition to socialism through a non-capitalist route. But the Socialist Revolutionaries were supporters of democratic socialism, that is, economic and political democracy, which was to be expressed through the representation of organized producers (trade unions), organized consumers (cooperative unions) and organized citizens (democratic state represented by parliament and self-government).

  The originality of Socialist Revolutionary socialism lay in the theory of socialization of agriculture. This theory was a national feature of Socialist Revolutionary democratic socialism and was a contribution to the development of world socialist thought. The original idea of ​​this theory was that socialism in Russia should begin to grow first of all in the countryside. The ground for it, its preliminary stage, was to be the socialization of the earth.

  Socialization of land meant, firstly, the abolition of private ownership of land, but at the same time not turning it into state property, not its nationalization, but turning it into public property without the right to buy and sell. Secondly, the transfer of all land to the management of central and local bodies of people's self-government, starting from democratically organized rural and urban communities and ending with regional and central institutions. Thirdly, the use of land had to be equalizing labor, that is, to ensure the consumption norm based on the application of one’s own labor, individually or in partnership.

  The Socialist Revolutionaries considered political freedom and democracy to be the most important prerequisite for socialism and its organic form. Political democracy and socialization of the land were the main demands of the Socialist Revolutionary minimum program. They were supposed to ensure a peaceful, evolutionary, without any special socialist revolution, transition of Russia to socialism. The program, in particular, spoke about the establishment of a democratic republic with inalienable rights of man and citizen: freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings, unions, strikes, inviolability of person and home, universal and equal suffrage for every citizen from 20 years of age, without distinction gender, religion and nationality, subject to a direct election system and closed voting. Broad autonomy was also required for regions and communities, both urban and rural, and the possible wider use of federal relations between individual national regions while recognizing their unconditional right to self-determination. The Socialist Revolutionaries, earlier than the Social Democrats, put forward a demand for a federal structure of the Russian state. They were also bolder and more democratic in setting such demands as proportional representation in elected bodies and direct popular legislation.

  Publications (as of 1913): “Revolutionary Russia” (illegally in 1902-1905), “People's Messenger”, “Thought”, “Conscious Russia”, “Testaments”.

  Party history

  Pre-revolutionary period

  The Socialist Revolutionary Party began with the Saratov circle, which arose in and was in connection with the group of Narodnaya Volya members of the “Flying Leaf”. When the Narodnaya Volya group was dispersed, the Saratov circle became isolated and began to act independently. He developed a program. It was printed on a hectograph under the title “Our tasks. The main provisions of the program of the socialist revolutionaries." This brochure was published by the Foreign Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries along with Grigorovich’s article “Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats.” He moved to Moscow in the Saratov circle, was engaged in issuing proclamations and distributing foreign literature. The circle acquired a new name - the Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries. It was led by Andrei Argunov.

  In the second half of the 1890s, small populist-socialist groups and circles existed in St. Petersburg, Penza, Poltava, Voronezh, Kharkov, and Odessa. Some of them united in 1900 into the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, others in 1901 into the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries.” At the end of 1901, the “Southern Socialist Revolutionary Party” and the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries” merged, and in January 1902 the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia” announced the creation of the party. The Geneva Agrarian-Socialist League joined it.

  In April 1902, the Combat Organization (BO) of the Social Revolutionaries announced itself with a terrorist act against the Minister of Internal Affairs Dmitry Sipyagin. The BO was the most conspiratorial part of the party; its charter was written by Mikhail Gotz. Over the entire history of the BO (1901-1908), over 80 people worked there. The organization was in an autonomous position within the party; the Central Committee only gave it the task of committing the next terrorist act and indicated the desired date for its execution. The BO had its own cash register, appearances, addresses, apartments; the Central Committee had no right to interfere in its internal affairs. The leaders of the BO Gershuni (1901-1903) and Azef (1903-1908) (who was a secret police agent) were the organizers of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the most influential members of its Central Committee.

  The period of the first Russian revolution 1905-1907

  The peasantry received special attention from the Social Revolutionaries. Peasant brotherhoods and unions were formed in villages (Volga region, Central Chernozem region). They managed to organize a number of local peasant uprisings, but their attempts to organize all-Russian uprisings of peasants in the summer of 1905 and after the dissolution of the First State Duma failed. It was not possible to establish hegemony in the All-Russian Peasant Union and over the representatives of the peasantry in the State Duma. But there was no complete trust in the peasants: they were absent from the Central Committee, agrarian terror was condemned, and the solution to the agrarian question was “from above.”

  During the revolution, the composition of the party changed significantly. The overwhelming majority of its members were now workers and peasants. But the party's policy was determined by the intelligentsia leadership. The number of Social Revolutionaries during the years of the revolution exceeded 60 thousand people. Party organizations existed in 48 provinces and 254 districts. There were about 2,000 rural organizations and groups.

  In 1905-1906, its right wing left the party, forming the Party of People's Socialists, and the left wing, the Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries-Maximalists, dissociated itself.

  During the revolution of 1905-1907 there was a peak in the terrorist activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries. During this period, 233 terrorist attacks were carried out (among others, 2 ministers, 33 governors, in particular, the king’s uncle, and 7 generals were killed), from 1902 to 1911 - 216 assassination attempts.

  After the February Revolution

  The Socialist Revolutionary Party actively participated in the political life of the country after the February Revolution of 1917, bloced with the Menshevik defencists and was the largest party of this period. By the summer of 1917, the party had about 1 million people, united in 436 organizations in 62 provinces, in the fleets and on the fronts of the active army.

  At the beginning of 1919, the Moscow Bureau of the AKP, and then a conference of Socialist Revolutionary organizations operating on the territory of Soviet Russia, spoke out against any agreements with both the Bolsheviks and "bourgeois reaction". At the same time, it was recognized that the danger on the right was greater, and therefore it was decided to abandon the armed struggle against Soviet power. However, a group of Socialist Revolutionaries led by the former head of Komuch Vladimir Volsky, the so-called “Ufa delegation,” which entered into negotiations with the Bolsheviks on closer cooperation, was condemned.

  To use the potential of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the fight against the White Movement, on February 26, the Soviet government legalized the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Members of the Central Committee began to gather in Moscow, and the publication of the central party newspaper Delo Naroda was resumed there. But the Socialist Revolutionaries did not stop sharply criticizing the Bolshevik regime and the persecution of the party was resumed: the publication of “Delo Naroda” was banned, and a number of active party members were arrested. Nevertheless, the plenum of the Central Committee of the AKP, held in April 1919, based on the fact that the party does not have the strength to wage an armed struggle on two fronts at once, called for it not to resume it against the Bolsheviks for now. The Plenum condemned the participation of party representatives in the Ufa State Conference, the Directory, in the regional governments of Siberia, the Urals and Crimea, as well as in the Iasi Conference of Russian anti-Bolshevik forces (November 1918), spoke out against foreign intervention, saying that it would only be an expression "selfish imperialist interests" governments of the intervening countries. At the same time, it was emphasized that there should be no agreements with the Bolsheviks. The IX Party Council, held in Moscow or near Moscow in June 1919, confirmed the decision of the party to abandon the armed struggle against the Soviet regime while continuing the political struggle against it. It was ordered to direct their efforts to mobilize, organize and put on combat readiness the forces of democracy, so that if the Bolsheviks did not voluntarily abandon their policy, they would be eliminated by force in the name of "democracy, freedom and socialism".

  At the same time, the leaders of the right wing of the party, who were then already abroad, reacted with hostility to the decisions of the IX Council and continued to believe that only an armed struggle against the Bolsheviks could be successful, that in this struggle a coalition was permissible even with undemocratic forces that could be democratized with the help of tactics "enveloping". They also allowed foreign intervention to help "anti-Bolshevik front".

  At the same time, the Ufa delegation called for recognizing Soviet power and uniting under its leadership to fight counter-revolution. This group began to publish its own weekly “People”, and is therefore also known as the group “People”. The Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, calling the actions of the “People” group disorganizing, decided to dissolve it, but the “People” group did not obey this decision, at the end of October 1919 it left the party and adopted the name “Minority of the Socialist Revolutionary Party”.

  In Ukraine, there existed the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Party, which separated from the AKP in April 1917, and the AKP organizations led by the All-Ukrainian Regional Committee. According to the instructions of the AKP leadership, the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries were supposed to fight the Denikin regime, but these instructions were not always followed. Thus, for calls for support for Denikin, the Kiev mayor Ryabtsev was expelled from the party, and for solidarity with him the local city Socialist Revolutionary party organization was dissolved. In the territory. controlled by the Denikin regime, the Socialist Revolutionaries worked in such coalition organizations as the South-Eastern Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly and the Zemstvo-City Association. The newspaper Rodnaya Zemlya, published in Yekaterinodar by one of the leaders of the Zemstvo-City Association Grigory Schrader, promoted the tactics "enveloping" Denikin's, until it was closed by the latter, and the publisher himself was not arrested. At the same time, the Socialist Revolutionaries, who dominated the Black Sea Liberation Committee, which led the “green” peasant movement, directed their forces primarily to the fight against Denikin’s followers and recognized the need for a united socialist front.

  In 1920, the Central Committee of the AKP called on the party to continue to wage an ideological and political struggle against the Bolsheviks, but at the same time, to direct its main attention to the war with Poland and the fight against Wrangel. Party members and party organizations who found themselves in territories occupied by the troops of Poland and Wrangel had to fight with them "revolutionary struggle by all means and methods" including terrorism. The Riga Peace Treaty, which ended the Soviet-Polish war, was assessed by the Social Revolutionaries as "treasonous betrayal" Russian national interests.

  The activities of the Siberian Socialist Revolutionaries intensified under the influence of the victories of the Red Army over the troops of Kolchak. In organizing anti-Kolchak forces, the Socialist Revolutionaries used zemstvos. The Zemstvo Congress, held in Irkutsk in October 1919, which was dominated by the Socialist Revolutionaries, decided to overthrow the Kolchak government. In November 1919, in Irkutsk, the All-Siberian Conference of Zemstvos and Cities created a Political Center to prepare an uprising against the Kolchak regime, which was headed by F. F. Fedorovich, a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. As the Red Army approached Irkutsk, the Political Center carried out an armed uprising in late December 1919 - early January 1920 and seized power in the city, however, power in Irkutsk soon passed to the Bolsheviks. The Social Revolutionaries were part of the coalition government created by the Bolsheviks in Vladivostok at the end of January 1920 - the Primorsky Regional Zemstvo Government and the same composition of the government of the united Far Eastern Republic, formed in July 1921.

  By the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the AKP had virtually ceased its activities. Back in June 1920, the Social Revolutionaries formed the Central Organizational Bureau, which, along with members of the Central Committee, included some prominent party members. In August 1921, due to numerous arrests, the leadership of the party finally passed to the Central Bureau. By that time, some of the members of the Central Committee, elected at the IV Congress, had died (I. I. Teterkin, M. L. Kogan-Bernstein), voluntarily resigned from the Central Committee (K. S. Burevoy, N. I. Rakitnikov, M. I . Sumgin), went abroad (V. M. Chernov, V. M. Zenzinov, N. S. Rusanov, V. V. Sukhomlin). The members of the AKP Central Committee who remained in Russia were almost entirely in prison.